Produced by MWS, Wayne Hammond and the Online Distributed
Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net (This file was
produced from images generously made available by The
Internet Archive/American Libraries.)
PICTURES AND PROBLEMS
FROM
LONDON POLICE COURTS
BY
THOMAS HOLMES
_POPULAR EDITION_
LONDON
EDWARD ARNOLD
1902
_All rights reserved_
CONTENTS
CHAPTER PAGE
I. HOW I BECAME A POLICE-COURT MISSIONARY 1
II. IN LAMBETH POLICE COURT 15
III. A CHANGE FOR THE BETTER 23
IV. HUSBANDS AND WIVES 39
V. PARENTS AND CHILDREN 60
VI. RECORD-BREAKERS: JANE CAKEBREAD 80
VII. RECORD-BREAKERS: KATE HENESSEY 94
VIII. AMONG DIPSOMANIACS 115
IX. CRIMINALS 132
X. CRANKS 161
XI. THE ARCADIANS AND SOME ACCOUNT OF THE ‘GUBBINS’ 180
XII. HOW THE POOR LIVE--AND DIE 188
XIII. THE PROBLEM OF HOME WORKERS 213
PREFACE
In the various chapters that make up this volume I have made no attempt
to deal with the whole of the humanity that finds its way into London
Police Courts: I have but selected a few individuals who strikingly
illustrate human or social problems. Each of those individuals was
well known to me, and many of them have cost me anxious thought and
prolonged care. It is in the sincere hope that the knowledge I have
slowly gained of these individuals, of their characteristics and
environments, may lead more influential persons to inquiry and study
that I have written of them.
I am also exceedingly glad to have an opportunity of expressing
publicly the debt of gratitude I owe to many; for surely no one
has received greater kindness than myself. First, to the various
magistrates under whom I have been privileged to work I tender my
sincere and warmest thanks for the consideration and kindness which
they, without exception, have shown to me. To the chief clerks and
police-court officials also my thanks are due for their unvarying
courtesy and kindness. To the police generally I owe many thanks for
the confidence they have so liberally accorded me.
To the representatives of the Press in the North London Police Court I
owe much for the publicity they have freely given to the many cases in
which I have been interested, and with which I should have been unable
to deal without their aid.
To the unknown friends at home and abroad who have cheered me with
kind letters, and sometimes with liberal assistance, I tender also my
grateful thanks. But to one lady--Mrs. Perry Herrick--more than thanks
are due. Without her kind help much that I have done I could not have
done, and much that I have learned I could not have learned. For a
long period of years she has supported me in my work, and in her the
poor and the unfortunate, the demented and the outcast, have had a
sympathizing and liberal friend.
To Mrs. Perry Herrick, then, I beg respectfully to dedicate this
imperfect account of my work among the poor and the outcasts of London.
THOMAS HOLMES.
12, BEDFORD ROAD, TOTTENHAM.
PREFACE TO THE NEW EDITION
It would ill become me to allow a new edition of this book to go forth
without expressing my grateful thanks to the public for the kind manner
in which the book has been received.
Public and Press seem to have vied with each other in showing kindness
to me and gentleness to the book, while to its faults they have been
more than a little blind. If I judge rightly, this is not because
the book has of itself any excellence, but because of the particular
work in which I am engaged--a work that appeals to the oneness of the
human heart. I have received many letters filled through and through
with sympathy; and while I rejoice to know that the book has been of
interest, I rejoice still more to know and feel that it has in some
degree helped to draw the human family nearer together. This was my
hope and my aim; that it may still continue to do so is my heartfelt
desire.
I have been compelled to add a new chapter, for so many have written
to me on the subject with which the chapter deals that no choice was
left to me. By the kindness of the Council of the London Police Court
Mission of the Church of England Temperance Society I am henceforward
to devote a portion of my time to special work among the poorest of
all London’s toilers--the home workers. For them I have hopes and
aims. If I can bring some rest and joy into their lives, if in some
small degree I can forward the day when a much better state of things
shall prevail, then indeed my joy will be great.
THOMAS HOLMES.
12, BEDFORD ROAD, TOTTENHAM, _March,_ 1902.
PICTURES AND PROBLEMS FROM LONDON POLICE COURTS
CHAPTER I
HOW I BECAME A POLICE COURT MISSIONARY
‘You have missed your vocation in life; you ought to have been an
actor, or a writer for the _Daily Telegraph_,’ so I was assured by
an eminent professor of phrenology. The professor had expressed a
wish to meet all the London police court missionaries, with a view of
ascertaining their fitness or unfitness for the position they hold.
Mine was the last head he measured. He had passed all my colleagues,
and had found no unfitness among them. Not being sure of my fitness, I
waited till last; but when all had been declared good men and true, I
submitted myself to his tape and measurements with some confidence. I
wished afterwards that I had taken the precedence to which my age and
length of service entitled me.
Now, I knew very well that as a missionary I had often made a fool of
myself. I knew much better than the professor my unfitness for the
work, for, gracious me! it has knocked me out of time too often for me
not to have realized it. Still, I was a bit nettled when I found that
I was the only one in a wrong place. I had not even the comfort of a
partner in distress; but I recovered from the shock, and comforted
myself with the thought that they must be a splendid lot of men when I
was the worst among them.
Yet it gave me pause. What if he were right? Fifteen years I had
been blundering among poor humanity, hoping and fearing, racking my
brains, never knowing when to give in, though often lifeless from the
expenditure of nervous energy. Fifteen years I had been realizing
that I could only move others to the extent I felt for them, and that
there is no healing without loss of virtue. What if the professor were
right? It troubled me, for I thought of the poor, the unfortunate,
the downcast, and the heterogeneous mass of humanity one meets with
in our London police courts. Some other fellows might have done them
so much more good, might have comforted more broken hearts, and might
have ‘rescued’ in a wholesale fashion what time I had been peddling and
meddling with solitary individuals.
Still, I felt I had done my best, and I knew that there were eyes
that brightened when I looked into them; I knew that I had made some
little ones happy, that I had strengthened some despairing wretches,
and had helped in some degree to lift the great burden of sorrow that
presses upon the human heart; and besides, was there not the delicate
compliment conveyed that I might have been an Irving or a Toole,
or--ecstatic thought!--a writer for the _Daily Telegraph_? I began to
think the professor was right, and though I had never been in a theatre
till I had passed my fortieth birthday, I felt I had dramatic instincts
and a relish for comedy.
My mind went back forty-five years, and I remembered that from a poor,
starved, and small Sunday-school library I had got Defoe’s ‘History of
the Plague.’ How it thrilled and absorbed me! ‘Bring out your dead!
Bring out your dead!’ ever rang in my ears, so with a rattle (lads made
them in those days) in a little old Staffordshire town I ran about the
streets shouting out: ‘Bring out your dead! Bring out your dead!’ I
remembered, too, that I emulated the poor half-witted drunken piper in
the ‘dead-cart,’ and blew unearthly noises on a tin whistle, innocently
asking: ‘I ain’t dead, am I?’
But whatever prospects I may have had of becoming an actor were doomed
to early death, and it happened on this wise. A large travelling
theatre came often to our town. How well I remember it, with its
framework of thin deal painted green, and its patched and torn roof!
Every evening on an elevated stage at the front the company in full
dress disported themselves, the band played, the whip cracked, and
there were pressing invitations to the small crowd to ‘Walk up! Walk
up!’ How they responded may be gathered from the fact that one night
the master of the ceremonies giving the usual invitation made a slight
variation, and it came out as follows: ‘Walk up, walk up, ladies and
gentlemen, and see one of Shakespeare’s most beautiful tragedies,
entitled----’ Here he became anxious as to the size of the house, and
putting his head through the canvas to look, he soon drew it back, and
called out to one of the company: ‘Only five in.’
I never got inside this booth, but those who did told fascinating
tales. One Shakespearian night ‘Romeo and Juliet’ was to be performed,
and as Romeo did not come on, the ‘house’ waited in expectancy the
while. The stage manager came to make some explanation, but before he
could speak one of the company rushed on to the stage, and called out
to him: ‘Romeo’s drunk!’ But the messenger was closely followed by the
pot-valiant Romeo, who roared out: ‘’Tis false, you dastard! Romeo is
not drunk!’ and promptly knocked the accuser down.
Coppers were scarce in those days; lads, at any rate, did not get many,
so we searched the thin boarding for cracks or apertures through which
to gain, if not a free pass, at any rate a free look. I had found
one, and was with the aid of a pocket-knife improving my opportunity,
when something cut short my aspiration for the stage. It was only the
butt-end of the horse-whip that had cracked so merrily on the outside
stage, but it was quite sufficient to cut short my view of ‘Maria
Martin,’ to make me sore for days, and to end my acquaintance with the
stage till I saw the ‘Sign of the Cross’ at the new Alexandra Theatre,
when, I am sorry to say, I liked Nero best. But I have never been
able to command or direct my sympathies, for I well remember when I
first read Milton that I had considerable admiration for Satan, and
was always anxious to know how he was getting on. My curiosity on that
point has been more than satisfied since I have been a police court
missionary.
With all respect to the professor of phrenology, it is no fault of mine
that I did not figure behind the footlights and ‘tear a passion to
tatters.’ I never had the chance. But as to tragedy and comedy--well, I
have in London seen plenty of each, though I have never been able yet
to tell exactly one from the other. Things are so mixed up in life that
sometimes I feel inclined to cry where other people laugh, for I have
found that real comedy has too often a sadly pathetic side.
As to my being a writer for the _Daily Telegraph_, the possibility of
it never dawned upon me, and in my most ambitious days I never dreamed
of, let alone aspired to, such a giddy height. It is very sad to think
how much the public and myself have lost through the proprietors of
that paper failing to put me on their brilliant staff. I wish that I
had met that professor forty years ago. But I am to make some amends
for my mistake, for I find myself writing a book, and I can quite feel
with Byron
‘’Tis pleasant sure to see one’s name in print--
A book’s a book, although there’s nothing in’t.’
I cannot promise you flowing periods, for of the rules of composition I
know nothing; my grammar is uncertain, and as to spelling, why, I often
have to turn to my dear wife and ask, ‘Margaret, how do you spell such
and such a word?’ and she always knows; she is ever so much better
than a dictionary. But, alas! before twelve years of age I was at work
fourteen hours a day in an iron foundry in good old Staffordshire.
Three farthings per week my father paid for me during the few years I
went to school; it was a penny a week school, but they made a reduction
on a quantity: two brothers for three halfpence, three for twopence,
and so on. There was a large family of boys at our house, so if I could
have gone to school a few more years I should have gone almost for
nothing, and dad would have saved something. But he evidently thought
I could earn something, and littles were useful then, so at the age
stated I found myself in the foundry. It is now the fashion, I know,
to make light of the schools of those days, and certainly there was
much about them to provoke wonder; but I never hear the pedagogues of
those times sneered at without feeling a desire to show fight on their
behalf. They had their own way of doing things, but personally I doubt
if they are done much better now, with all our resources. Perhaps
they could not teach much, but they taught it well, and they had a
power of instilling into boys a love of knowledge, which is perhaps
even better than knowledge itself; for their boys were not in a great
hurry to forget what they had learned, but rather sought to add to it
after leaving school. What if they did use the cane freely? I never
knew a boy get it but what he richly deserved it, and with it all the
schoolmaster and his boys were much better friends, and a much better
influence was exercised in those days than I am afraid is the case now.
The schoolmaster knew his boys then, and had a comparatively free hand
in teaching them. If he found a boy who learned quickly, he advanced
him without waiting for the end of the year, regardless of examination,
and this produced a spirit of emulation among the boys. Every Friday
afternoon those boys who had worked well during the week were allowed
‘recreation’--in the winter by means of chess and draughts, both of
which he taught us; in the summer-time he would take an occasional walk
with us.
Ours being a Church school, we had to go to Sunday-school and church
twice every Sunday, and woe be to the lad on Monday who had not
conducted himself well on Sunday! for he got something that he was not
able to rub off in a hurry. The Sunday-school was held in the chancel
of an old church, the remaining part of which was a picturesque ruin.
Here at nine every Sunday morning all the boys from the day-school
assembled, and as many others as could be induced to come. Teaching
continued till 10.30; after this came a quarter of an hour’s recess,
during which time we were allowed to run riot in the old graveyard. We
got a lot of play and not a few fights in that quarter of an hour. I
have obtained a nice black eye more than once, and have marched into
church thus decorated. Our schoolmaster, who was also superintendent of
the Sunday-school, had a short way with the black-eye business. To the
lad who obtained that distinction on the Sunday he gave a good caning
on the Monday, and as I invariably got a decent thrashing at home under
such circumstances a black eye meant something to me; but I never
remember receiving chastisement for inflicting black eyes on other
lads, a feat that I was sometimes able to accomplish.
The quarter of an hour being up, the master would appear at the
chancel-door, and the cry ‘All in! all in!’ would be raised, fights and
other sports would be cut short, and away we would all scamper to our
different classes, ready for the march to the church, a newer building
on the other side of the main road.
Sometimes, I remember, the fights were adjourned. My Sunday-school
teacher was for a considerable time a publican. I am afraid he was a
sinner, too, for he arranged the adjournment of a fight in which I was
one of the principals, and on the following Monday night I sat on his
knee between the rounds, and on that occasion, at least, my opponent
got the black eye and the caning. Nothing succeeded like success with
a pugilistic boy, and the master invariably acted on the principle ‘To
him that hath shall be given.’
In church a steep gallery in one corner on the left-hand side of the
door downstairs was reserved for us, there being the usual gallery
for the congregation upstairs. Here in front of us, a little oak desk
before him, and a white rod about 12 feet long and 1 inch in diameter
beside him, sat the master for two mortal hours. I fancy I can see
him now--a tall man, with spectacles, collar and stock, sitting bolt
upright, grasping with one hand his white pole and with the other his
Prayer-Book. Always intent on his devotions, he nevertheless seemed
to have half a dozen eyes; for though we were rude enough to call him
‘Four eyes’ (behind his back), we really had reason to believe him
possessed of a much larger number. For with his white pole he could
reach every boy on the gallery, and though he never struck us with
it, he did worse, for he prodded us. When he saw any boy inattentive,
sleeping, or in mischief, he would put down his books, make a rest of
his left hand, and prod with his right. It was not pleasant--in fact,
it hurt very much--when one received in quick succession several prods
on the chest or in the ribs, where they generally got home. I used
to get into mischief on that gallery on which I sat four hours every
Sunday for many years. But I got afraid of the long pole, with the cane
to follow on the Monday. So I determined to be a good boy.
If boys did not buy their Bibles, Prayer-Books, and hymn-books, they
had to go without them excepting in school. There were no penny ones in
those days, and I wish there were none now. A Prayer-Book cost sixpence
at the lowest, and we used to pay the master a halfpenny a time, which
he duly placed to our credit. When a boy had paid his last halfpenny,
he became the proud owner of a new black and shining Prayer-Book,
and he thought something of it. Proudly and promptly his name was
written in it, coupled with a warning to thieves; neatly was it covered
in brown paper or calico; jealously was it guarded and treasured,
for it had cost something: it had been worked for, hoped for, and
waited for. Things had for nothing are lightly esteemed; the value of
anything equals its cost. Nothing is more sad--I think I ought to say
disgusting--than to see the way in which at all Sunday-schools (church
or chapel) the hymn-books, Prayer-Books, and Bibles are used. Cheap and
nasty in their printing and paper, shoddy altogether in the putting
together, which cannot be called binding, they cost nothing, they are
worth nothing, they are valued at nothing, and the dust-heap becomes
the receptacle of the bulk of them.
But we thought something of ours, and I, who had never seen any book
in my father’s house but the old family Bible with the Apocrypha and
family register in, learned my Prayer-Book off by heart as I sat for
four hours a Sunday on the gallery. It kept me out of mischief, and it
strengthened or trained my memory, but it also--and this was the chief
glory--allowed me more time to play during the week. Sunday by Sunday,
year in and year out, in the old chancel for Sunday-school, we had to
repeat aloud individually the Collect, Gospel, and the Epistle for the
day. They were supposed to be learned during the week. On the gallery,
white pole in front of me, during those interminable sermons mornings
and afternoons, I committed to memory the whole of them, and so had
nothing to learn during the week--and the master thought I was a devout
boy.
When I became possessed of a Bible of my own, I went for the poetry of
Isaiah and the Psalms. At the Sunday-school, morning and afternoon,
they gave us tickets, which were saved up and counted at the end of the
year. They were little bits of cardboard, marked ‘A.’ for attendance,
‘L.’ for lessons, ‘C.’ for conduct. In addition, if boys committed to
memory and recited on Sunday extra chapters, they were credited with
the number of verses repeated. I used to get all possible tickets, and
a large credit of extra verses.
What an event the prize-giving day was in that old chancel! The boys
all there, scrupulously clean, nearly all clad alike, for choice
of clothing was limited; corduroy trousers, a Holland tunic with
leathern belt, home-made linen collars, and Scotch caps made out of a
sound piece of some disused garment was the general rule. The vicar
and his curate, the master in his collar and stock, the clergy from
neighbouring villages, and various ladies and gentlemen were gathered
there. Then the prizes--what a heap of them, to be sure! I wonder what
the boys of to-day would think of them--few or no books, no toys, no
cricket-bats or footballs, but yards of calico, flannel, or cotton
goods! Many a time I have staggered home with a big parcel of such
‘prizes’; but how well I remember that mothers were very glad of them!
Very few books were given, and those were of the old-fashioned ‘goody’
sort, in which a bad boy came to a bad end, and a good boy died young,
and which made it appear that there was a very bad look-out for lads
either way.
There was one particular Sunday in the year in which the boys had to
uphold their superiority over girls, and the next Sunday girls tried
their best to prove themselves better than boys. Both boys and girls
became excited about it, so much so that I have seen them fight over
the matter. This was Catechism Sunday, for which boys and girls would
train and practise for weeks beforehand, both at school and at home. If
the boys did well, a half-day’s holiday at the Sunday-school was given
them, with full marks and tickets. But if the girls did best, they got
the tickets and the half-holiday.
On the Sunday afternoon appointed the boys, with clean collars
and tunics, would be arranged by the master along the aisles of
the church--a double row--facing each other. The clergyman in the
three-decker pulpit would be interrogator, and put the question of the
Catechism, and each boy in his turn would answer the question put to
him. The schoolmaster would arrange the boys, and from their lessons
in the day-school would know how to place them so that the longer
and harder answers would fall to boys who were good at repetition.
Every mistake was noted down by the clergyman and schoolmaster, and
by the girls, who were eager listeners. The girls had their turn the
following Sunday, with the boys for listeners. The side that made the
fewest mistakes were champions for the year. If any boy or girl made
a comical mistake, or mispronounced a word, he or she would be known
by the mispronounced word for many a day. We got a lot of fun and many
quarrels out of the Catechism, and though it generally fell to me to
tell the clergyman what was the duty I owed to my neighbour, and though
my knowledge was perfect, I am much afraid that I never attained to its
performance. So Sunday and week-day boys were under the watchful eye
of the schoolmaster, and though in trying to get the better of him we
sometimes dropped in for the worst (for he was a big man with a strong
arm), we loved him, and he loved us, rascals though we were.
In those days boys went to work at a very early age; many lads that
I knew went to work in the pits before they were ten years old, and
started from home before five o’clock in the morning in order to be at
the pit’s mouth before six, that they might descend to earn sixpence by
twelve hours’ labour plus a two-mile walk. Holidays were never heard of
unless there was some accident to the engine or machinery. Times were
hard and wages were low; food was very dear. Bread was a shilling per
loaf, and bad at that, sugar sixpence per pound, dirty and adulterated.
Tea was about six shillings per pound, and in those days much of it was
not tea. So before I was twelve I found myself in the iron foundry,
working fourteen hours a day, getting three shillings per week, and
thinking I was a man.
But before I left this school, a dark, bronzed, and severe-looking
man came in one day, and I was called out of class to work a problem
on the blackboard for him. I suppose it was done fairly, for I went
back to the class thrilling with the touch of Dr. Livingstone. He had
said something to me, and placed his hand on my head. I never knew
what he said, but I felt his hand, and my heart and pulses beat the
faster. Now, if I had been a good boy, I should have been inspired by
that touch, and have decided then and there to become a missionary, but
truth compels me to say that I was not a good boy, and did not feel
called to the missionary field; but I did feel inspired--I felt certain
that I could kill lions. But after all, you see, I am in the direct
line of succession. A great missionary’s hand has been laid upon my
head, and not ‘all the water in the rough, rude sea can wash away the
balm.’
But that was not the reason why I became a missionary; in fact, there
was no particular reason why I should, but there was a long chain of
circumstances, a series of events looking small enough in themselves
at the time, but, seen in the light of experience, to me large and
important events. But who shall say what is great or small in our
lives’ history? It was a small thing that led me to a night-school, and
to teach there for years after a hard, long day’s work, but I did it.
Temperance societies, literary societies, mutual improvement societies
are small things, but I worked hard for them all; and if I did not do
a lot of good to others, I did some good to myself; if I could not
teach much, I could learn a lot. It was a small thing that led me to
take a men’s Bible class in a purely Welsh-speaking district on Sunday
afternoons, but it altered the course of my life, made a missionary of
me against my will, and brought me to London to write this book.
The Divinity that shapes our ends shaped mine in a painful manner. Let
me tell you how. It was a beautiful Sunday morning in early June, and
I had gone with my boy and my Bible into the grounds of an old Welsh
castle for the purpose of quietly preparing my afternoon lesson. It
was a beautiful spot; the old ivy-covered castle behind me, a lovely
valley in front, beyond which rose the Welsh mountains, while the sheen
of the sea was visible some miles to the right. As I lay prone with my
Bible before me, I forgot in the enjoyment of the morning all about
the afternoon, for I had to learn another lesson. I knew the poetry
of Isaiah, and I called out: ‘“He weighs the hills in a balance, He
measures the water in the hollow of His hand”; “He spreadeth out the
heavens as a curtain.”’ I was full of oxygen and ecstasy. Immediately
below me was a plain famous in Welsh history, for great battles had
been fought there. So by one of those tricks of the mind--my mind,
at any rate--I found myself at home, not with Isaiah, but Ingoldsby.
‘And I thought upon Wales and her glories, and all I’d been told of
her heroes of old.’ I was just reeling it off when----‘See me roll,
papa!’ I looked at my boy as he rolled about, and instead of laughing,
I began to feel pathetic, with a sort of lump in my throat. I don’t
know whether other folk are the same, but the sight of a happy child
brings to me thoughts too deep for tears. Alone on a mountain-top, in
the solitude of woods, or alone by the sea-shore, I experience the
same feelings. I could not talk to my boy, so he spoke to me. ‘You
roll, papa!’ and he pushed at me. I rolled. I heard his merry laugh. I
rolled again, and then--chaos. Some time after I heard a little voice
say, ‘Have you woke up, papa?’ I stared stupidly. I could see the sky
above, and that was all; at length I realized that I was in the castle
moat, and I remembered rolling. ‘I am only sick and giddy,’ I said to
myself. But the feeling did not pass off, so I managed to crawl home,
for I lived close by. I did not leave my bed for some months, for I
had broken blood vessels, and streams of blood ran from my mouth. Thus
I became a missionary, though suffering and pain and poverty for dark
days and anxious years followed that Sunday morning--years in which I
was learning my lesson. Slow years they were, not of sorrow, nay, nay,
but years of grinding anxiety. I could not dig, to beg I was ashamed,
and no man gave unto us. Several times I tried the iron foundry again,
but I was weak and ill, hæmorrhage still threatened me, and having made
up my mind not to die, I had to find some way to live.
Thank God, my wife never went out to work or took in washing, nor yet
plain sewing--hand in hand we faced it. I look back into those years,
and see our little home in a colliery district of Shropshire. I see
that little home every evening turned into a night-school. I see my
gentle wife leaning over big-fisted colliers and teaching them to
write: I see myself leaning over one and teaching him cube root, over
another and teaching him simple addition. I see those colliers paying
their sixpences. I see the rent put ready for Monday, and I remember
how little there was left for Saturday night marketing. Those old
days come back to me, and not for one moment do I wish them blotted
out; nay, nay, I feel some pride in them. But I take another backward
look, and we are in Staffordshire again, and my boys are going to
the same old school that I went to. But times have altered at that
school, for I see my boys winning scholarships and going to a grammar
school, and started on an educational course that led one at least to
a distinguished University career; but still hard times, hard times,
for wife and me. We lived at an institute--library, reading-room,
billiard-rooms, refreshment-rooms, skittle alleys, dispensary,
club-rooms, gymnasium, all combined, and all to look after and keep
clean. Wife and I had no finger-nails in those days; we wore them away
scrubbing floors, for there was no one to help in any department.
But here, also, was a night-school, which I had to teach; a literary
society, that I had to conduct; and a mutual improvement society, also
for me to fill up my spare time with. Hard work and poor pay was the
rule in those days.
But one day a saint of God and king of men came in, as indeed he often
did, for it was my privilege and joy to know and love him, my proudest
boast to call him friend. Only a country parson, who laid down his life
for his flock; but it was an inspiration to know him, with his strength
and meekness, brave and fearless as any hero that ever trod this earth,
gentle, loving, and sympathetic as any woman. How often have I wished
him back with us!
‘Thomas, you are not doing very well here.’
‘No, Vicar, I am not.’
‘This place is not good enough for you.’
‘I don’t know about that, but it is not good enough for my wife.’
‘I am sure of that; but why don’t you apply for this?’
‘This’ was an advertisement for a police court missionary at Lambeth
Police Court. I laughed, and said I had never been in a police court
but once in my life, and that was for thrashing a big lad who had been
ill-using a lesser one. He, however, strongly advised me to apply for
the post, and to please him I did so. It turned out that the Bishop of
Rochester and his Council, not having the guidance of a phrenological
professor, selected me out of a dozen candidates. I don’t know why to
this day, but I suspect it was owing to my dear old Vicar. And so I
became a police court missionary, and came to London.