HOW THE POOR LIVE--AND DIE
One hot afternoon in July, in the hottest year of recent times, a man
of about thirty-five years of age sat on a chair outside a very poor
house in a very mean street of Hackney Wick. There was not a breath of
air stirring, and, though the sun shone brilliantly, and the street
was redolent with unsavoury smells, the poor fellow found the rays of
the sun and the smells of the street preferable to the insufferably
close atmosphere of the very little room--first floor back--in which
he had lived for the last eighteen months. I had just come from a room
where misery, poverty, and marvellous heroism had been strikingly
illustrated. I neither saw the man nor smelt the unsavoury odours, for
I was thinking of what I had seen, when I heard a faint but choking
cough--one that told its story. I looked and stopped, and found myself
face to face with the man on the chair.
His high cheek-bones, his hollow cheeks, and emaciated body and limbs
told me that not much longer would he gasp for air in that unclean
street, or lie waiting for death in his very, very small room. ‘You
are very ill,’ I said, and he nodded his head. ‘What is the matter?’
‘Consumption, but it is nearly all over.’ ‘Would you not be more
comfortable in a hospital?’ ‘I have been in the Chest Hospital, but
there is no hope.’ On further inquiry, I found that he was a single
man, had no relations who knew or cared about him, and that he had
come from the hospital to live with strangers, hoping that his time
would be short. ‘But how do you manage to live?’ I asked. ‘Ah, sir,’
he said, ‘it is a race, and I don’t know which will be gone first--my
money or my life. I knew years ago what was the matter with me, and I
have been very careful and saving, and I did hope that I should leave
enough to pay for my funeral.’ I got him some cooling drink, and told
him that I would call and see him the following Tuesday, when I should
again be in his neighbourhood.
I called on the appointed day, but his chair was not at the door, for
he lay in his little room. When I went in he gave me his poor thin
hand, saying: ‘I am glad you have come.’ I told him that if it gave
him the least pleasure I would call every Tuesday afternoon. He looked
at me and said: ‘I am glad, because you have kept your word.’ There
was sad suggestiveness and deep pathos in his words and look. I had no
need to inquire what he meant, for they told of promises lightly made
and wickedly forgotten, of hopes raised never to be realized. After
sponging his forehead with a little toilet vinegar, and putting a
handful of flowers where he could fondle them, and a little fruit where
he could reach it, I left him. Week by week I called upon him as he lay
there waiting for the end in his stuffy little room. All the night long
he lay alone, a very small, evil-smelling lamp for his companion; but
night brought no relief, no welcome coolness, and all the night long,
he told me, he lay and wished to God it were morning. But the morning
and the brightness of the sun brought no welcome change, so during
the day he lay and wished for the cool of the evening, for to sleep
he had become a stranger. One day I called, and he was in great pain;
he could not keep still, yet he had not strength to move. I wanted to
soothe him, but I did not know how, so I said to him: ‘How can I help
you?’ With his burning eyes he looked at me and said: ‘Ask God to let
me sleep--if I could, I might be easier--or die.’ I knelt down by his
bedside, and taking his poor hands into mine, I prayed that sleep
might come upon him; and then, silent and still, I knelt there hand in
hand with him for some minutes, and lo! ‘He gave His beloved sleep.’
Quietly withdrawing my hands, I left him peacefully sleeping, and took
my last look at him, for I never saw him again.
It was now well into August, and I had to leave London for a few weeks.
The first day of my return I went to see him, but his final sleep had
come, for he was dead and buried. On inquiry, the landlady told me
that he had given her, just before he died, enough money to pay for
his funeral; so the race had been run and the pauper’s funeral had
been avoided. She gave me a scrap of paper with some writing on it
in pencil--I have it by me now. I never knew his name, he never knew
mine--what did they matter? But this is what the paper says: ‘Tell the
kind gentleman I am not ungrateful; I hope he will forgive me, for I
think God will. I cannot bear it any longer and am going to end it. He
will not see me again.’ I was told that after my last visit he again
became sleepless, and that one day he got up and put on his clothes
and wandered tremblingly into the street, making, as it seemed, for
a canal close by. He told no one his errand; slowly, step by step,
he went, till his weakened limbs could carry him no farther, for he
fell exhausted close to the canal, but closer still to death; for he
was carried to his little room, and God had mercy upon him. He left
no debts unpaid; the rent of his little room had been discharged, all
his landlady’s claims had been satisfied, and his account balanced--no
assets, no liabilities.
And the simple annals of the poor in the sordid misery and dirt of our
slums furnish many an instance of stern independence and unfailing
industry. But heroes are of no sex, and so I want to tell the story
of the poor widow who lived but six doors from my unnamed friend. I
had been visiting her when I came in contact with him. I met her at
the police court; she had been dragged from the Lea and charged with
attempted suicide. Her garments, few and old, clung to her like
cerements. Her hollow cough told its tale, and her face spoke of a
pathetic hopelessness. She was a match-box maker, and, as I said, a
widow. Her husband had been a wood-carver and a worker in the Ragged
School. It was the fourth anniversary of his death. ‘Promise me, Mary,’
he had said, just before his death, ‘that you will not let the children
go into the workhouse.’ She had willingly promised, and to her that
promise was sacred. But it cost something to keep it.
She buried her husband, gathered her children round her, and with
her bits of furniture went into one room, and proceeded to make her
match-boxes. She had four children, and the youngest, a girl, was but
two years old. I know that room, for I have been in it scores of times;
it measures ten feet by eight. I know everything in that room, from its
miserable bed to its paltry cupboard. I know the rent of that room: it
is three shillings weekly--£7 16s. a year. She has now been in it nine
years, and has paid over £70 in rent for that mean room. Here with her
children four she set to work to redeem the promise made to her dying
husband. Here in Christian London she made match-boxes at 2¼d. a gross,
finding her own paste and thread. Here in the ‘land of the free’ she
made match-boxes for fourteen hours a day, seven days to the week.
Here she earned 1s. 3¾d. a day for her ‘stint’ of seven gross. Here
she earned 9s. 2¼d. for her week’s work of ninety-eight hours, plus
fetching and returning her work, and minus the cost of her thread and
paste. And so she essayed to live, and so she did live, for she had
had four years of it when I first met with her. Too hopeless even for
despair, she became a machine, and her heart became dead within her. No
parish allowance for her, organized charity had nothing for her, and no
Sister of Mercy or parish clergyman had visited in her little room, for
she ‘kept herself to herself.’
But I have forgotten an important item. The widow had a widowed
mother, old and feeble, but who supported herself, and out of her
penury allowed her daughter a shilling a week. For three years and
nine months after the death of her son-in-law the tottering old woman
carried the shilling weekly to her daughter, and then she died and the
shilling died with her. The loss of her mother and the shilling awoke
some feelings in the dead heart of the match-box maker. For three
months she struggled on, with her lessened means and the increasing
wants of the children; and the anniversary of her husband’s death came
round. That afternoon, as she sat at her match-boxes, looking through
her window, she saw a dead body drawn out of the Lea. At midnight there
was a cry raised, ‘A woman in the Lea!’ So next day I met her in the
police court.
She was not punished, God forbid! but the worthy magistrate kindly
committed her to my care. So I went with her to that little room ten
feet by eight. I saw the wistful children almost famished, and sadly
wanting clothing. I sent in food for them, and next day went again with
clothing for all of them. I took them out, and bought new boots for
them all, mother included. I wish that I could describe the scene in
that boot-shop when the children had on their new boots. Some people
might have smiled and have been amused, but I could have choked, for,
God help us! it was pitiful. The younger ones were filled with joy and
childish wonder. The elder boy, about eleven, looked up and down, first
at his boots and then at myself; his mouth twitched. He half laughed
and half cried, until I said to him, ‘How long is it since you had a
new pair of boots?’ ‘I can’t remember having a pair,’ he said. But
there sat the poor mother, hopeless and apathetic; the children’s joy
never stirred her, nor did their wonder move her. I paid her little
debts. I filled their cupboard with food. I stopped her from work. I
compelled her to go out of doors. All this I could do as I continued
to visit her, but no smile could I bring to her face, no hope into her
heart. I got her nice clothing, but even that created no interest;
there was nothing but dull, passive apathy and increasing weakness.
It was summer-time, so the children were sent into the country, and
the widow accompanied my wife and myself to the seaside. Two other
women went with us; both had broken down from sheer hard work and
hopelessness. One was a fur-sewer, and had thrown herself in front
of a train; the other a blouse-maker, who had taken laudanum. Let me
picture the poor woman as I often saw her and still continue to see her
in that village by the sea. She was too weak to walk, so we placed a
chair for her on the sands. There she would sit hour after hour with
the same hopeless, apathetic, far-away look upon her face; still and
impassive she sat, save for the mysterious movements of her hands, for
these were ever at work. Fourteen hours a day, seven days to the week,
continued for years, had made those hands automatic, and they would
make match-boxes in spite of her. Nature had its pound of flesh! still
oxygen, rest, good food, did much for her, and human sympathy helped
by-and-by to cheer her. After a month she returned to her little room,
to her children four, and to her match-boxes; but not to fourteen hours
a day, not to seven days a week. I reduced her ‘stint’ to seven hours
per day and six days per week. For four years I paid her rent and
clothed the children, until her eldest boy was placed in a situation,
and was able to help his mother. Reluctantly I then let her go, for new
and fresh demands are ever made upon me. Still, she was not entirely
forgotten, and a little help was sent her from time to time.
Several years passed when, in company with a friend, I called upon
her--still in the little room, still at the everlasting match-boxes;
time, 1.30 p.m. From 6 a.m. she had been at it, and had just finished
some work that must be sent back to the factory; she had earned 7½d.
I wish again that I could describe the woman this time in her room.
There in the corner is the little bed and but scant clothing upon it,
but the poor sheets are clean; upon it lies her youngest child, a girl
of eight. She has lain there eight weeks ill, and unable to move.
No parish doctor for the mother; she is still too independent, and
loves her child too much, to think of it, and she still remembers the
promise made to the girl’s father. So she works the harder and starves
herself the more, in order to pay two shillings a visit to a doctor. I
timidly suggested the infirmary for the child, but well I knew what the
response would be, and it came. ‘Don’t separate us, don’t separate us,
Mr. Holmes. My heart is broke. I shan’t be long after my child,’ was
all I could get from her. So I had again to begin my task, for I could
not leave her in such misery.
I told her story to friends, and liberal help was sent for her. I
was enabled to furnish two rooms for her and the children. The boys
had grown taller, but again they got good new clothing and boots,
and better situations were found for them. The little girl was again
sent to the country, and is now going to school; but the mother--the
devoted, struggling mother--sometimes makes a few match-boxes; but
oftener she lies ill in her bed, from which she will sometimes rise,
and with failing strength, but with desperate endeavour, try to wash
the sheets and clothing that have been provided for her. And so down to
the grave she will go, working and struggling, her only hope to live
long enough to see her children self-supporting--a hope that will not
be realized.
And such lives abound; it is my sad duty to meet with them--it is my
joy and privilege to help them. Great are the opportunities given to
my colleagues and myself to right some of the wrongs, to undo some of
the evil, that our present-day civilization inflicts upon the innocent
and the helpless. Men and women apparently forgotten alike of God and
man meet us. Their very hopelessness appeals to us, and it must not
appeal in vain. I can fight with a dipsomaniac, as Paul fought with
beasts at Ephesus. I can throw myself into the existence of a burglar,
till he becomes part and parcel of myself. I can feel a deep pity for
the vice and drink smitten women upon the streets of London, but to the
poor, the honest, hopeless, struggling, dying poor, my very heart goes
out. ‘They are for a prey, and none delivereth; for a spoil, and none
crieth, Restore!’
‘But do you meet with any gratitude?’ I am often asked, for the
ingratitude of the poor is a pet theme with many. I don’t go about
the world looking for gratitude; if I did, I should not meet it. I
want to see wrong redressed, toil lessened, comfort increased, homes
replenished, children made glad, and sad hearts comforted. If I can see
these things, I get joy, and never think of gratitude, but nevertheless
it comes to me even when I do not look for it, and the following
instance may show it.
A married man had been sent to prison for six months, and richly he
merited his sentence, for he had grossly assaulted his wife, the
mother of eight children. He was a violent drunkard, and it was by no
means his first offence. The wife was sadly injured, and was broken
and nervous from the repeated assaults. But the home had to be kept
together, and the children fed. She lived in the slums and became the
prey of the sweater. One Sunday afternoon I called at her house, and
knocked at the door, but there was no answer. The glass panel in the
door being broken, I had no difficulty in gaining access. The various
families in the different rooms took no notice of me as I went upstairs
to a room the door of which stood open. I stood on the threshold for a
moment and took in the whole scene. The woman, facing the window that
overlooked a miserable ‘yard,’ sat at a sewing-machine, the incessant
rattle of which told me that she was working for life. Her back was
towards me, so she neither saw nor heard me. Before she had finished
her seam I had time to notice that the floor was covered with ladies’
blouses, at the making of which she was earning the fancy price of
tenpence per dozen, finding her own machine and thread. Last week she
had made twelve dozen blouses, and had sat at the machine 108 hours
for her ten shillings, earning somewhere about one penny per hour.
She finished her seam, threw the garment to the heap, and turned to
take another, when she caught sight of me, uttered a frightened scream,
and fell off her seat into the heap of blouses. I called to one of her
neighbours, and we gathered her up, when I could not fail to notice her
condition--soon again to be a mother. I put the strap of the machine
into my pocket and left her five shillings, the price of fifty-four
hours’ work. In a few days I called again, and found her in bed,
waited on by a little girl of ten who had now another little sister. A
reference to this particular visit and the poverty she was in is made
in the letter, of which I give a copy. But there, lying weak and ill,
she inquired for the strap of the machine, which I gave to her, and in
less than a week from her confinement the rattle of the machine was
heard in her room.
I continued to visit her till the time approached when her husband
would be released, a time to which she looked forward with dread. She
told me this repeatedly. The day the husband was released I went to
the house to meet him, for I thought my services might be useful. The
husband was there, but the wife had gone, taking her children with
her. None of the neighbours knew where she had gone--she had kept
silence on the matter--but gone she was, much to her brutal husband’s
consternation, for he was now homeless. I tried several times to find
her, but quite in vain, so I gave up the search: But I knew she was
hiding from her husband, and was afraid to let me know her address lest
he should find it out.
Two years went by, and I neither saw nor heard anything of her, when,
on Christmas morning, I received a letter which contained no address or
name; but it was from her. This is the letter:
‘DEAR SIR,
‘I hope this will find you and all your family quite well. I hope
this Christmas will be a happy one, and that in the New Year God’s
blessing may be with you in all your labours. That you may have
good health and happiness, I sincerely pray; that your life may be
long spared, I earnestly hope, for you to cheer the oppressed and
the broken-hearted. You will, I know, continue to feed the hungry
and to clothe the naked and to visit the sick, for you have done it
to me many a time. Sometimes, when I have lain helpless on my bed,
waited on by a little child, with only thin water-gruel, without
sugar, to eat, you, sir, have come in with your helping hands, and
have said: “You must have something better”; and you would bring
it. Had it not been for you, my children would have gone hungry
many a time, for often the last slice had gone, and the last bit of
coal had been burnt, when you would again come in and bring more.
I do not ask anything from you. I shall not let you know who I am.
I am almost past help in this world, but I feel that I must let
you know that your kindness to me is not and cannot be forgotten.
May God answer the prayers I have offered for you. They shall be
answered, for the King Himself shall answer, and say unto you:
“Inasmuch as you have done it unto one of the least of these, you
have done it unto Me”; and you shall enter into joy. May God bless
you!
‘FROM A POOR WELL-WISHER.’
And that was from a slum woman, but not born in the slums. To me there
is no cant in that letter. I know it is permeated through and through
with heartfelt gratitude. I never found her or heard more from her, but
I feel that she no longer dreads the return of her brutal husband, no
longer makes blouses at tenpence per dozen, no longer makes the machine
fly eighteen hours for one-and-eightpence; for ere this the weary woman
is at rest, and the wicked cease to trouble her.
This awful life of the slums, how strangely it acts and reacts upon
our poor humanity! It brings out the worst, it brings out the best;
it debases men and women, it ennobles them. Vice and misery ramp and
crawl, but purity, love, and gentleness are not absent. Outstretched
hands and suppliant looks tell that many are eager for the least boon
that pity can bestow; but stern, unyielding independence is by no means
an absent quality.
But I must tell another story of the same summer-time and of the same
locality, for my unknown friend, my match-box widow, and the poor
blouse-maker lived within a few minutes’ walk of each other, and close
by is a horrid, unclean court, and the sun poured its torrid rays into
it. It is a very narrow court, and frowsy women from their doorsteps
on either side can bandy words with each other. Sometimes they meet in
the roadway, and fights are not unknown. Women of a positive character
live in that court, and, coming home at two o’clock in the morning,
make it hideous with their lewd and drunken blasphemies. Labouring
men live there too, some of whom, on returning from work, find their
wives drunk, and no semblance of an evening meal; then, heigho! for the
crashing blow, the brutal kick, and the yell of the trampled wife. In
a room on the ground-floor of one of the houses lies a woman waiting
for death--death that tarries, for she has lain there for months--and
was so long, so ‘unconscionably long in dying’ that her husband, by
assaulting her, had tried to expedite the process, and was sent to
prison for six months for his pains. Her little bed is underneath the
window, close on to the pavement, and she can hear the wrangling of the
women, the crying and quarrelling of the children, the blasphemy of
the ‘unfortunate,’ the maudlin talk of the drunken wife, and the blow
of the brutal husband. She has no respite from these things; neither
has she any respite from pain, for she is in the last grip of internal
cancer. She has been operated on twice in a London hospital, but there
was no hope, so she said: ‘I will go home and die among my children.’
She has four of them, and the eldest is a girl of fourteen, who earns
four shillings a week at a laundry. The husband no sooner receives his
well-merited six months than out of a neighbouring workhouse comes
an old woman of sixty-five, mother of the cancer-stricken woman. She
enters into an agreement with a working-man, who has lost his wife, to
keep house for him and look after his five children. Four shillings
a week she is to receive for her onerous task. And every Saturday
afternoon the old woman’s four shillings are added to the four earned
by the girl, and not till the cancer has done its worst (or its best),
not till the grave has closed over her daughter, not till the husband
has come back to his children--not till then does the old woman seek
again the shelter of the workhouse, there to wait for the rest and
oblivion that has come to her daughter.
Week by week for six months I visited the cancerous woman, giving her
such help and comfort as I might; but what a six months for her! Unable
at length to take food, she starved slowly toward death; but she lasted
till the husband came back to her, and he came--drunk! He had earned a
gratuity of seven shillings while in prison, and he was violently drunk
at mid-day, when I arrived on the scene. I soon drew his attention
to myself, and as he followed me along the street, and was grossly
insulting, he again got taken into custody, and was remanded for a week
to give his wife time to die. Poor woman! she cried after him, and with
her failing breath told me she wanted to see him once more before she
died. She had her wish, for after a week’s remand he was discharged,
and I saw to it that he went home sober, for I went with him. In a
week’s time there was a parish funeral from that court, attended by an
old woman of sixty-five and a girl of fourteen. Brave old woman! the
five pounds you so hardly earned shall be appraised at its proper value
by Him who noted the widow’s mite. You can go back to the workhouse,
and there die, cheered, comforted, and strengthened by the knowledge
that you enabled your daughter to die outside, and the memory of that
shall come to you as an angel’s smile when the time comes for you to
join your daughter.
But there are poor people outside the slums, and suffering is borne
with marvellous endurance in many respectable streets. Unfortunately,
married men well placed will commit crimes, and have to pay the
penalty, or, rather, their wives and families pay the penalty. Mercy!
how they suffer! If the crime, one against property, be repeated, as it
often is, then the very perfection of suffering is felt and endured by
the wives and families left behind. Their friends cast them off, for
the lustre of their respectability must not be soiled, even by contact
with a suffering wife and innocent children. Down, down they go; bit
by bit the home disappears, until there are only a few relics left of
a once comfortable home, and these are worthless. Pass along some of
these streets, and you will find cards in some of the basement windows
announcing ‘Plain needlework done by hand,’ or ‘Pianoforte taught on
moderate charges.’ My life for it, there are tragedies being enacted in
those breakfast parlours down in the basement.
To such a place I went one Christmas Eve. A man who had held
first-class positions was sent for trial on a charge of embezzlement.
Three terms of imprisonment for similar offences had not sufficed to
cure him of dishonesty. When he was convicted, I saw weeping at the
back of the court a decent-looking woman, who carried a sickly-looking
child. I had some conversation with her, and found that the prisoner
just committed was her husband. She lived two miles away, and had
walked to the court, carrying the child, two years of age, because she
had no money to pay her fare, and the child was too ill to be left at
home with the other children. She wanted to see what became of her
husband, who, to use her own expression, had ‘been so good’ to her. I
saw that the child was dangerously ill, and that she herself was faint;
so I gave her a few shillings and sent her ‘home’ in a cab, promising
to call upon her.
About a fortnight elapsed before I did so, and as I descended the
steps that led to her breakfast-parlour I heard the strains of an old
worn-out piano and the sound of children’s voices. Curiosity prompted
me to stand outside a moment before I rapped, when I learned that
children were dancing and singing within. I thought at first I would
go without seeing her, for I came to the conclusion that things were
looking up and my assistance would not be wanted, but I ultimately
decided otherwise; so I rapped, and she came to the door and asked me
in. ‘You are merry to-night,’ I said to her. ‘Hush!’ she said, as she
led me into the room among the children, of whom there were twelve.
They were all nicely dressed, and had slippers on. There was not much
in the room. On the floor was a very worn and faded carpet, that had
been a good one; and, as I have said, the pianoforte was a very old
one. I could not understand, so I said: ‘You are having a party, I
see.’ She did not speak, and I could see that her eyes were swollen
and red. Presently she lit a small lamp and beckoned me to follow her
into a small bedroom, divided from the front-room by folding-doors.
As we went in she closed the doors carefully behind us, and, with the
little lamp in her hand, went up to a small bed and turned down the
sheet, and then looked at me. I took the lamp from her and looked.
There lay the two-year-old child that I had seen at the court, but its
sufferings were over, for it lay cold and still. ‘And you are having a
children’s party?’ ‘Oh, no, no! I must do it or starve. The children
pay me sixpence a week, and come three evenings to learn dancing and
a little singing.’ Yes, she sat at the old cracked instrument playing
whilst happy children danced and the child of her own body lay dead
within six feet of her. Yes, and she also went to respectable houses
to teach music, playing and singing, where they paid an accomplished
woman threepence per lesson of one hour’s duration. So she lived and
worked and hoped for her husband’s return, for he had ‘been so good’ to
her. I gave her such clothing as enabled her to appear respectable, for
‘respectability’ demands that a music-teacher, even at threepence per
hour, shall not appear poor.
But some streets are so ‘respectable’ that Mrs. Grundy will not allow
the music-teacher or the plain sewer to exhibit their cards in their
windows, either in the basement or the third floor up. It must not be
known that poor struggling women pay exorbitant rents for single rooms
in such houses, but they do, nevertheless. ‘Whited sepulchres’ are many
of these houses, and the cheap lace curtains at all the windows and
the artificial plants make pitiful pretence of comfort within. To such
houses and the various rooms in such houses I am no stranger. I have
seen old women hugging their respectability, and ready to perish; I
have seen younger ones living lives that have filled me with wonder; I
have seen husbands and wives hoping against hope, and trying to comfort
each other, for not always does love fly out at the window when poverty
comes in at the door.
In the top room of one of these houses I met with the most wonderful
instance of sisterly devotion it has ever been my lot to meet with. I
will picture it. Two sisters, only servant-girls, but their room is
scrupulously clean, and even tastily furnished. The furniture is old,
but the best is made of it. A pretty screen keeps the draught from
the bed, on which lies one of the sisters, who is twenty-four years
of age, and has lain there seven years. A piece of linen steeped in
eau-de-Cologne is across her forehead; underneath her half-closed
eyes are dark rings; the cartilage of her nose is almost as thin as
writing-paper, and is constantly quivering; her face is pale as death
itself, and her faint breath comes in quick vibrations from the top of
her throat. Yonder sits her sister, at work with her needle; she is
almost as pale as the invalid, and suffers from occasional hæmorrhage.
Ten years ago both parents died, and the elder sister made a promise to
her dying father that she would ‘look after’ the younger. Some of the
furniture was put safely by, and hand in hand into service both girls
went, and a year or two passed. But the younger one was delicate. The
influenza soon got hold of her, and remained with her so long that she
had to leave service--but not for the hospital or infirmary.
An empty room was taken, the remains of their parents’ furniture was
put into it, and to her lonely room and bed the younger one was taken.
Four-and-sixpence weekly was paid for that empty room. They had saved
a little money, but a servant’s wages are small, and it soon went.
After the influenza came all sorts of complications, paralysis and
spinal disease, etc.; so the younger sister, a child in appearance but
a woman in years, has lain on her bed ever since, nursed, waited on,
lifted in and out of bed by her sister, who worked for the pair. For
the first four years the elder sister remained in service, nursing and
keeping house for two old ladies, visiting her sister every morning,
washing her, tidying the room, and putting her food to hand; this had
to be liquid food, in a baby’s sucking-bottle; for this was the only
way in which the younger could take nourishment, and, her right arm
being helpless, the bottle had to lie close to the left. Every night,
after she had put her old ladies to bed, the elder would return again
to the younger sister, and arrange for her comfort during the night.
The younger one was left alone day and night except for the sister’s
visits. This was their life for years; but her wages were not enough
to keep the pair and pay rent. So she took in plain sewing, unknown to
her sister or the old ladies, and sat regularly into the small hours
of the morning, stitching away for private customers--hence her cough
and hæmorrhage. But the old ladies died and were buried, and had no
more need of her services, so now the sisters are living together, and
stitch, stitch, stitch is the order of the day and night. She does not
work for the factory or the sweater, but for private customers, who
like their work done by hand and done well.
Done by hand! and her earnings are no better than the match-box makers
or the blouse-makers, for a shilling a day is the average. Yet she
never complains, but goes on steadfastly, quietly, and persistently
with her work and her duty. Seeking no help, and hiding her poverty
from the world, on she goes, no change, no holiday, no rest, excepting
when she herself is ill; then, to keep the knowledge of that illness
from her poor little sister, she wraps herself in a rug and takes her
rest--not on the bed, but on the hearthrug.
And very thoughtless many ladies are. A couple of months the elder
sister worked nearly a week, and earned five shillings. The work was
all for one lady, who praised the work when it was taken home, saying
she would send her more and pay for them altogether, when the work was
finished. Weeks passed on, and there came no more work nor the five
shillings that were so badly wanted. Four applications by letter were
made before a postal order was received to discharge the debt, and the
poor creature lost fourpence in postage.
‘Evil is wrought by want of thought, as well as want of heart,’ is
a truth that I have often seen illustrated in our police courts. A
woman about thirty-six years of age once stood in the dock, charged
with being drunk. Her head was bandaged, and her mantle, which had
seen much better days, was covered with blood. She had fallen from a
tramcar, was picked up insensible and smelling of drink, was taken
by the constable to the police station, and the doctor fetched to
attend to her injuries, who stated that she was recovering from the
effects of drink. So she was charged. She gave no name, no address,
nor occupation, and when before the magistrate she was silent except
for protesting tearfully that she was not drunk. She was ordered to
pay the doctor’s fee, and having no money, was placed in the cells.
Through the little trap-door I spoke to her, when I noticed that she
had a parcel with her, also bespattered with blood. She was badly hurt,
and quite broken-hearted at being a prisoner. I might have paid her
three-and-sixpence, but I saw that she was ill and not fit to go home
by herself, so I begged her to tell me where she lived, that I might
see her friends. She resolutely declined at first, but after an hour in
the cell she sent for me and told me where she lived, but asked me not
to call till two o’clock, as her aunt, who lived with her, would not be
home before.
At a quarter past two I called, and the rap I gave at the door told
me that there was no linoleum on the passage floor, and but little
furniture in the house. To my surprise a nicely dressed and beautiful
girl of about sixteen came to the door. I told her that I had called
to see the aunt, and had come from the niece, who was injured, but not
seriously. She told me they had been anxious about her mother, who went
to take some work home the day before, and had not returned. I did not
tell the girl where her mother was, but took stock of the house. There
was no carpet on the floor, and three Windsor chairs, a deal table, and
a sewing-machine formed the only furniture--no other goods, save two
oil-paintings without frames on the wall. I looked at them and said to
the girl: ‘Whose portraits are these?’ ‘Grandpa’s and grandma’s,’ was
the answer. ‘They were gentlepeople?’ I said. ‘Yes,’ she said; ‘we used
to have a carriage when I was little.’
Just then I heard someone fumbling with a latch-key at the door,
and presently in came the aunt, old and wrinkled, bent with age and
trouble. Dressed in old-fashioned and badly-worn clothing, black cotton
gloves an inch too long for her fingers, she stood and looked at me
askance. I told her my errand, for the girl had left us alone. The
trembling old woman sat down, put her glove-covered hands to her face,
and rocked herself backward and forward, and I could see the tears
trickling down. Presently she stood up, and tremblingly drew off one
of her gloves, and said, ‘That’s all we have in the world, sir, and
that is my parish allowance; I have just been to fetch it.’ I looked at
her old skinny hand, and there in the palm lay a solitary half-crown.
The girl was called in again, when I told her that I was taking her
aunt to her mother, and that shortly both would be back again. The old
lady was so feeble and excited that I had to support her till we got a
conveyance. When we got to the court, I had again to give her my arm;
but when I had paid the doctor’s fee and the cell-door was opened to
her niece, she wanted none of my support; for, as soon as she saw her
niece coming up the passage, she loosed her hold of me and with eager
steps and a pitiful cry ran toward the tottering woman; and presently
their arms were round each other, and the bruised face of the younger
woman was laid against the furrows and wrinkles of the older woman,
while their tears blended together.
I thought it best to see them ‘home,’ but they did not offer to tell me
who they were; they did, however, tell me that the girl was a member of
a well-known choir, and was only ‘home’ for a short holiday. I found
out, though, what had brought the younger woman to the police court.
She had taken home some finished work to a lady, who praised it and
gave her more work to do. Unfortunately, she did not think of paying
her, but more unfortunately still, she gave her a glass of spirits.
Doubtless it was meant kindly, but it was disastrous; for the woman was
weak for want of proper food, and in just that condition of body and
mind when some food would have been most useful. Having to return home
by tramcar, and the inside being full, she had to mount the outside.
Just as she got to the top, and before she could get a seat, the car
started, and overboard she went. The spirits had doubtless made her a
bit giddy, but she told me that she would not have fallen but for the
car starting too soon--in fact, before she was off the steps. I called
again to see them. The girl had rejoined her choir; the wrinkled old
lady sat in the almost empty house, thinking, thinking, everlastingly
thinking of the past; the younger one with her bruised face and head
still bandaged, sat at her machine. Once more I called, and the house
was empty, and a bill was in the window. They were gone--and I never
knew where. Neither did I ever learn whence they came or who they
were; but this much I did gather, that the aunt’s means, as well as
the fortune of the family, had been squandered by the husband of the
younger woman.
So many gently-born come down into our slums, and compete with the
poorest of the poor for a bare and miserable existence; but they mix
not with the coarse and the lewd that abound around them; they seek
no help, and never flaunt their poverty. Silently and in obscurity
they go down to their doom of starvation. Sometimes they will come to
the court and gasp their sorrow out to the magistrate, but not often,
unless, indeed, it is some man or woman brought low by their vices.
In such self-respect is dead, and they are ever ready to trade upon
their past affluence, and are by no means ashamed to beg; but those who
have been brought low by the wrong-doing of others present a pathetic
spectacle.
I have before me now an old letter which came to me at the police
court. It reads as follows:
‘DEAR SIR,
‘For God’s sake, come and see us! This is a forlorn hope.’
As it gave the name and address of the writer, I went, and again it
was Christmas Eve. The snow lay deep on the ground, and a hard frost
had bound it together; the fog was choking and almost impenetrable,
when about seven in the evening I found myself knocking at the door of
the house. There was no light in the passage, but someone--I could not
see who--answered the door. I inquired for Miss G----, and the voice
said: ‘Downstairs.’ The door closed, the owner of the voice went away,
and I was left in complete darkness. I struck a match, and by the aid
of its feeble light found the ramshackle staircase that led below. I
groped for a door, found one, and again knocked, and it was opened. A
middle-aged woman with an old shawl round her head stood before me,
a small benzoline lamp in her hand. Her face was so swollen that her
features would not have been recognised even by friends. I told her
my errand, and she asked me in and gave me a chair. It was an uncanny
place. The fog penetrated the room, and the small, smoky lamp scarcely
relieved the gloom. I had not been seated a moment before I was aware
that there was something or somebody alive in one corner of the room,
for a difficult and almost choking breathing was very audible. Beyond
asking me in, the woman in the shawl had not spoken, so, lifting the
little lamp from the table, I went to the corner, and very soon found
a pair of eyes gazing into mine. The eyes and the breathing belonged
to another woman, who lay on a miserable bed in the corner. She was
evidently near death, and could not speak to me, so I found my way to
the chair. ‘Who is she?’ I asked quietly of the woman in the shawl.
‘My sister.’ ‘She is very ill?’ I said. ‘She is dying,’ was the reply.
‘Have you had the doctor?’ ‘Yes; the parish doctor has just gone away,
and he says she won’t last till morning.’ ‘Why did you write to me?’
She cried silently for some time, and then she told me that they had
lived together for years, getting a living by making ladies’ aprons,
etc., for the shops; that for a long time past her sister had been
failing, and that for the past three months she had lain on that
bed. She told me also how her own eyes had been gradually weakening,
and her own earnings had fallen off, and, to make things worse, for
the past month she had been half mad with neuralgia. So they had
got behind with their rent, and the landlady was constantly abusing
them and threatening to turn them out. They were the daughters of a
once thriving tradesman. The dying sister had married a professor of
languages, and with her husband had lived for a long time in Germany
and France. Her husband had lived expensively and died suddenly,
leaving his wife unprovided for. She herself had kept house for her
father--she scarcely remembered her mother--and after the death of her
father, who left her some little money, her sister joined her, and they
tried to eke it out by doing needlework. But their earnings were small,
and by degrees their bit of money went, and now sickness and death
had come, and they were penniless. I made no more inquiries. I could
see for myself that poverty and death were in that murky room. So I
satisfied the landlady, sent in some coals, nourishment, and a better
lamp. On Christmas Day, by the aid of this lamp, she saw her sister
die, and a few days afterwards she stood by the grave of that sister,
who had been given a common--very common--interment by the parish.
Several years they had lived in that underground room; a street grating
was over their only window, and over that grating children played, and
hundreds of people tramped daily knowing nothing of the tragedy going
on underneath. But I helped her out of the cellar to a first-floor
back, where there was a good window. I obtained a pair of spectacles
to aid her weakened eyes, and she said she could keep herself, for old
women think they can do wonders. I heard no more of her for years, but
one day there came a small package to me. There was no letter, but the
package contained a silver German coin, nicely mounted and made into a
brooch; it was wrapped in a piece of paper, on which was written: ‘In
memory. Forlorn hope.’ Either the workhouse or the grave--most probably
the latter--has swallowed her.
But the numbers of poor women, devoted sisters, who go hand in hand
to the grave is not limited. I have met with many such. About many of
them there is nothing picturesque, no story to tell, but their lives
are lives of devotion, and one might well marvel and say: ‘Behold, how
these sisters love each other!’ The faults of the poor are well known
to us; if they are not, ’tis not for the want of telling. The marvel is
that they are as good as they are, for of many it may be said, ‘Hope
is not for them.’ And yet to go on, month after month, year after
year, with their self-imposed duties, with their hard, onerous, and
ill-requited toil, uncheered and uninspired by hope, makes the marvel
the greater and their lives the more noble. Some, as I have shown,
become apathetic, and work on as machines, but still on and on with
their drudgery they go, until welcome and well-earned death comes to
them. But with others it is far different, for their hope has turned to
bitterness, and though they never dream of relinquishing the struggle,
and never seem to realize that old age is coming upon them, yet they
retain a stern, rugged, and sometimes even a pugnacious independence
when, after many weary years, well-meant assistance is offered them.
‘Hope deferred maketh the heart sick.’
But let me tell a story. I have told it before, but I want to tell it
again. Standing in the dock of one of our police courts is a tall,
spare woman of fifty-five. Her dress is of rusty black, and has done
duty for many a year. Her bonnet, surmounted by a veil, is also black,
and of ancient type. Her face tells of years of suffering, and bears
that wistful look that is generally found on the faces of those that
are stone-deaf. The gaoler stands beside her with a slate, on which
are written down bits of the evidence for her to read. The officer
in the witness-box says that about ten o’clock the previous night--a
cold, dark night in February--he was on duty by the Lea, when he heard
a splash and a cry. By the aid of his lantern he saw a black object in
the water; he swam towards it, and found the prisoner, who said, ‘Let
me die! Let me die!’ With difficulty he got her out, for she had tied a
satchel round her waist, and in the satchel he found a flat-iron.
Following the officer in the witness-box came a little elderly woman,
a small edition of the prisoner, but bent with hard work, her face
furrowed and wrinkled. Her hands were twisted and gnarled like the
roots of a tree; every joint was enlarged with rheumatics: they told
a tale of hard, incessant toil. For thirty years, day after day, year
after year, she had stood at the wash-tub and scrubbed out the social
salvation of herself and sister.
The prisoner, she said, lived with her, and had done so for many years.
Thirty years ago her sister had brain fever, and lost completely
her sense of hearing. She was also detained for a short time in an
asylum, out of which place she came to live with her. She had been
ill many times since, and lately had not seemed happy. Yesterday the
witness went to fetch home some work, and when she got back her sister
had disappeared. Under an inverted basin on the table she found two
pennies, a piece of cake, and a note which read as follows:
‘DEAR EMMA,
‘I have been a great burden to you; for more than thirty years you
have worked for me, and now you are getting old, and will not be
able to work for me much longer. Good-bye; you will never see me
again.’
She begged the magistrate to allow her to take her sister home again;
her sister was no burden to her. She could easily keep her, and would
promise to look well after her. The magistrate kindly agreed to this,
and asked me to render what help I could, so I went home with them;
and I shall not forget going, for that poor little home is before
me now, with all its spare, old-fashioned, respectable poverty, and
its scrupulous cleanliness. It bore eloquent witness to the work and
struggles of the pair. A week later I was in that little home again
on a very glad errand. I had ten golden sovereigns to give them, and
my wife was with me to see the joy of the sisters, and to share in
my pleasure. Ten golden sovereigns! What would they not do for the
sisters? Coal, food, warm clothing, and rest were all in those shining
bits of metal. I loved the chink of the metal for the sake of the
two women. The skinny arms were bared to the elbows, the gnarled and
twisted fingers were in the soap-suds when I told her my errand, and
put the money before her.
She looked at me strangely for a moment, and then, straightening up
her old bent body, she lifted up her hands before me and said, almost
fiercely, ‘Sir, do you see these hands? For thirty years they have
worked for and kept my poor sister. I have had no charity from parson
or parish; not one penny have I received from anyone, and, please God,
I never will. I can work for my sister. Take the money back to the
sender. I dare say it was meant kindly, but there is none of it for us.’
Argument and persuasion were of no avail; the indomitable little woman
was proof against both: not a penny would she receive. The money might
be sent back, or I might use it for the poor who needed it, but not
for them--not for them. So she gathered the money up and gave it back
to me. Had I not taken it, she would have thrown it into the street.
Foolish old woman! but brave, heroic old woman! We left her with full
hearts, and the chink of the money was not quite so joyous. Years ago
timely help and kind sympathy might have cheered and comforted her,
but now it is too late, for she will die rather than receive it. Years
have gone by, but the pair are still living together. A few Sundays ago
I met them out for a walk, both looking older and more feeble, their
ancient clothing still more rusty; both living the same hard lives,
hand in hand, down to the grave they go. It will be a mercy if they can
cross the bourne together, for brave, steadfast, and heroic in their
lives, even death should not divide them. The story of Charles Lamb
and his sister lives; his love and devotion to his poor sister will
never be forgotten, for his love almost passed the love of women. Up
and down the neighbourhood where these sisters live Charles and Mary
Lamb had many times wandered hand in hand. Can the example of the witty
writer and loving heart have influenced the poor washerwomen? No, for
she never heard of him. Only the promptings of her own true heart were
needed, only the feeble strength of a little woman was required, only
unceasing toil, only perpetual pain, only reticent poverty, sustained
for many a year, and a life was lived, endurance exhibited, and a
devotion shown that will compare with any lives of which I have ever
heard or read, and will not lose in the comparison. But she was only a
poor washerwoman!
So in their little homes, in their crowded tenements, high up in the
‘blocks,’ or low down in their underground bedrooms, the poor live,
so they die. I could tell of their sins, and of their vices, but that
would be no pleasure to me; so I tell of their virtues and sorrows, of
their patience and love, of their sufferings and wrongs.