Out of Copyright: Dottings of a dosser

[Hiram Abiff]

DOTTINGS OF A DOSSER
BEING
REVELATIONS
OF THE INNER LIFE OF
LOW LONDON LODGING-HOUSES

BY
HOWARD J. GOLDSMID

"Whereas it would tend greatly to the comfort and welfare of many of Her Majesty's poor subjects if provision ere made for the WELL-ORDERING OF COMMON LODGING-HOUSES," &c.&c. - The Common Lodging Houses Act, 1851

London
T FISHER UNWIN
26 PATERNOSTER SQUARE
1886


CHAPTER I.

WHO ARE THE "DOSSERS"?

But a short time has elapsed since the Press teemed with articles and the bookstalls overflowed with pamphlets treating of the woes of "outcast London." The "Bitter Cry," " Horrible London," and " How the Poor Live," threw a glare of lurid light upon appallingly miserable scenes. People's hearts were stirred, and many belonging to that half of the world which is proverbially ignorant on such subjects began to inquire "how the other half lived." "Slumming" became a popular amusement; and with this amusement, and the appointment of a Royal Commission to inquire into the matter, the public conscience was salved. A short Act was passed, which may be useful if properly administered, and then the interest which had been temporarily aroused subsided, and the sympathy excited, which had been more sentimental than real, went to sleep once more. Its slumbers will probably last until the curtain which shrouds the only partially depicted scenes of London wretchedness be lifted with a ruder hand, and the "bitter cry" sound more bitter and perhaps more menacing.
   
There is, however, a stratum of society even lower than that of the poor wretches who herd together in noisome courts and foetid, filthy alleys. These are the unfortunate creatures whose only home is the "doss-'ouse," whose only friend the "deppity"* [* "Doss-'ouse" and "Kip-'ouse" are synonymous, and signify a common lodging-house. The deputy is the man who super- intends the establishment.] ; who have, perhaps, for years never known what it is to have the shelter of a roof save that of a common lodging-house. There is no bitter cry from these, or at all events they have as yet found no spokesman to echo it in the public ear. Those who wrote - and wrote with power and pathos - of the squalid houses and still more squalid rooms in which the denizens of "horrible London" herd, and breed, and die, said little or nothing about the people who have neither house nor room that they can call their own, and who night after night, week in, week out, for many a weary year, "doss" in the nearest lodging-house, and hardly dare to dream of any other or better accommodation. While they live their principal care is to find the necessary fourpence each night, together with a few coppers more for food, or at all events for drink. When they die they depend upon the kindly feeling of their chums and fellow-dossers for the means of burial, or upon the scantier, if more certain, mercy of the parish sexton and the workhouse hearse.
     
In the course of some work in connection with one of those grand East-end institutions which undertake the rescue of destitute gutter-children, I became  acquainted, in a practical form, with the class I have described. I came into contact with many boys, of all ages, who had known no other sleeping-place than the lodging-houses, from the time when they could first remember sleeping at all. Every one of these lads spoke with horror and disgust of them, and of the surroundings at present inseparable from them. Their accounts determined me to see the "kip-ouses" from within as well as from without; to learn from experience as well as from rumour the sort of accommodation with which our poorest brethren are compelled to be content, and to know from personal investigation who the "dossers" are, and what is their lot in life.

    In the following pages I have endeavoured - how imperfectly I can perhaps tell even better than the reader - to set forth my experiences in the common lodging-houses, and the conclusions I deduce from them. The sketches there depicted may be ill-drawn, but they are not exaggerated, and I have stated nothing which has not come under my own observation. In every case I have given chapter and verse for what I have written. It may be well, however, to say a few words as to the occupants of the lodging-houses generally, before proceeding to give the more particular descriptions, to which, in all humility, I venture to invite the careful attention of the reader.

    Amongst those congregated in a lodging-house, one may find every sort of man and woman whom poverty can compel to seek a refuge there. Firstly, there are the "loafers." The drones in the working-class hive  are always to be encountered in a "doss-'ouse." But it is a grievous mistake to imagine, as many do, that none but the idle and vicious are to be seen among the "dossers" - nay, the proportion of such characters is by no means so large as is generally believed. Many have seen better days; respectable artizans whom the waves of trade-depression have overtaken and submerged; clerks elbowed out of a berth by the competition of smart young Germans; small shopkeepers ruined by the poverty of the working-folk among whom their business lay; even professional men - land surveyors, solicitors, surgeons - are now and then to be found among the motley crowd in a "kip-'ouse" kitchen. Nevertheless, the greater number belong to the very lowest class of the community. The navvies, the costermongers, and the thieves of the East-end herd together in these places, and many of the men who are to be met there combine the characteristics, and follow the avocations, of all three. And the women, in those lodging-houses into which women are admitted, are even worse. flags who have for years gained their living on the streets, but whom age and hideousness have compelled to relinquish their loathsome calling; hawkers of flowers, the freshness and bloom of which contrast painfully with the pallor and decay of the vendors; girls prematurely old, gin-sodden and steeped in vice; these, for the most part, are the representatives of what in their case has long since ceased to be a softer or a gentler sex. Others there are, but these, thank God! are few. The honest seamstress whose work has failed her; the widow left destitute, to find for herself and her little ones a home where she may; the wife deserted by a brutal husband; these occasionally find a refuge in the lodging-houses-but when they do, Heaven help and pity them!
   
 Are you prepared, reader, to meet such company? If so, come with me round some of the places I have visited. You will have the advantage that, while my tour was made in the flesh, yours may be completed in the spirit. And much is to be learned from such an expedition, even if made only in imagination, by those who have but very dimly realized the fact that there are dens of misery unutterable, and of vice indescribable, in some quarters of this wealth-teeming, yet poverty-producing, metropolis.

[Hiram Abiff]

CHAPTER II.

THE "BEEHIVE."

I HAVE surveyed myself most carefully, and my impression is that "my own mother wouldn't know me". My face - well, perhaps the less said about it the better, for it is absolutely repulsive by reason of the dirt that covers it. My shirt matches my face, and my coat accords with the appearance of both. Waistcoat and shirt-collar have alike been discarded, and a particularly unclean neckcloth of the familiar costermonger type has taken the place of both. My boots are broken and patched. My hat is a frowsy looking specimen of the flexible "deerstalker" type. I don't exactly know what I look like. Portions of my attire are reminiscent of a broken-down clerk of dissipated habits. Other signs are suggestive of a welsher "out o' luck;" while, again, I'm afraid I am not unlike a returned convict who has allowed his hair to grow. But, at all events, I venture to flatter myself that if any of the strangely varied company whose acquaintance I am desirous to cultivate, present a more inharmoniously disreputable appearance than myself, they must indeed be very far gone on what is sometimes termed the "downward path to destruction."

    I put the finishing touch to my disguise by inserting between my teeth a short clay pipe: and forth I sally in the direction of Brick Lane. That thoroughfare has been to some extent rendered classic by the facile pen of "Boz." But if it ever did produce a branch of the Grand Junction Ebenezer Temperance Association, times have materially changed. Temperance is the last thing the inhabitants of Brick Lane would think of in these degenerate days. There is no "young 'ooman" there now who would think of drinking "nine breakfast-cups and a half of weak tea;" and the principal idea relative to water appears to be that it is, of course, an evil, but to some extent a necessary one, inasmuch as beer cannot be brewed without it. There is a public-house at every corner, and it is needless to say that each and all of them are always full.

    I have selected the "Beehive Chambers" as my resting-place for to-night. It is a substantial looking building at the corner of one of the many narrow, squalid streets that intersect Brick Lane. There are always half a dozen filthy, drink-sodden, tobacco-breathing men lounging about the doorway, and it is to one of these that I venture, not without some misgiving, to introduce myself. I go up to him, and inquire if he has a light to spare. He looks round with a surly grin, and says with emphasis-

    "No, I ain't."
    This is unpromising, and I suppose I look as though I think so, for he continues, "There's a pub, over theer, and you'll get one easy enough."
    The man is a jewel! He has given me the very opportunity for which I am seeking, and I instantly thank him for the information, and ask him if he'll come and have a drink.

    Will he? Of course he will. He says that I'm a good fellow, prefixing this expression of opinion with an expletive which I am not bound to record. He puts his arm through mine, at which I shudder inwardly, but try hard to look as though I like it, and conducts me into a low public-house, steaming with the foetid breath of half-intoxicated men and women, and reeking with the strongest and rankest of tobacco-smoke.

    We are supplied with two "'arf pints of four ale," and I am enabled to take stock of my companion. He is a stout man with a pale, flabby, clean-shaven face. His eyes twinkle with suppressed merriment, and the surly look his countenance wore when I first accosted him, vanishes like snow beneath the sunbeams as the pot is inverted and its contents trickle lazily down his throat. When the vessel is replaced upon the counter, a smile of ineffable content and peace steals over his features, and I am emboldened to unbosom myself to him, and tell him the story I have previously arranged, to which he listens sympathetically enough. I am, I tell him, in a terrible pickle. I haven't done a stroke of work for six months, and my landlady has turned me out, and seized my clothes and effects in lieu of the rent due to her. I have no money, or next to none. Last night I walked the streets because I could not make up my mind to go into a lodging-house, but I'm afraid I shall have to now. And then I sigh heavily, and order my friend's pewter pot to be refilled.

    He hitches up his nether habiliments (he is lightly clad in a coat and pair of inexpressibles, both fearfully and wonderfully patched, and held together by all kinds of ingenious contrivances). Then he tells me, that as regards my goods, the landlady has no right to take them, and that were he in my place he would go and talk to the "madgestrate." He knows that it is hard to take to the lodging-houses.

    "It nearly broke my 'art when I fust did it," he says. "I'd walked about the streets a hull week before, and I shouldn't ha' gone then on'y I was that sleepy I dozed off with my 'ead agin a bloomin' lamppost, till a copper woke me up."

    "How did it come about?" I ask; and he tells me a long story of the chanticleer and bovine quadruped type, about a legacy of "five 'undred pound," that lured him to drink and dissipation; about his desertion by his friends, who had dropped off "as I dare say yours ha' done now you're down upon your luck !" and about a quarrel with a nephew, whose ingratitude goaded him to conduct that led to an interview with a magistrate, and "fourteen days." Here he absently lifts my pewter pot to his lips and drains it of its contents. He starts, appears surprised, apologizes for his mistake, and then proceeds, at my request, to enlighten me as to the Beehive and its occupants.

"I've been there," he says, "ever since the 'ouse was opened, and that's a good ten 'ear -"

    "Ah, but it ain't wot it used to be," interrupts a voice, which, on turning round, I perceive to belong to a. short blear-eyed man, with a stubbly beard of gingery hue. "I remember it when the old proper-ryator was alive, and there wasn't a better 'ouse, nor a more conducted in all Lunnon, but now-" and he stops suddenly, leaving me to infer from his remarks, that the choice spirits that once were wont to frequent the Beehive have gone to that bourne from which no dosser can return, and that the establishment itself is in a condition of decadence.

    "That's Sandy," whispered my companion. "We all as nicknames 'erc. I'm Bluegownd, I am-haw! haw! haw!" and he bursts into a guffaw at the facetious humour which has invested him with that mellifluously sounding, but not altogether appropriate, pseudonym. "The 'ouse," resumes Mr. Bluegown, "ain't wot it wos, as Sandy says. There's a lot o' decent men, and there's a lot o' riff-raff. Some on em's thieves, and some on em's wuss. Bt the most is decent chaps. Rough an' ready, you know; you mustn't mind 'em. Some on 'em would come up an' give you a punch o' the nose by way of an 'ow-de-do, but it's all sport. It's better than most of the 'ouses, a'ter all. The beds is clean, and the deppity's a decent chap. There's a good kitchen, 'ot water, plates an' dishes, cups an' saucers an' tea-pots." Here he casts a furtive glance at his empty pewter mug as if to see if he will be asked to refill it, and finding that no such invitation is proffered, he says - sooth to say with a somewhat chagrined air - "We'd better go now, if you're willin', an' I'll show you the rights an' wrongs of the place."

    Arm in arm we enter the narrow, dirty, dimly-lighted passage which leads the way into the inner cells of the Beehive. There is a little office there and I pay my fourpence, receiving in exchange a dirty piece of paper, on which is written "Sat. 259. pd." - which, translated for the benefit of the reader,  signifies that the night of my admission is Saturday, the number of my bed two hundred and fifty-nine, and that I have duly paid for the privilege of enrolling myself among the gentlemen whose lodging is the Beehive.

    "Come on," says Bluegown, "come on, 'ere you are; this it the readin' room."

    The apartment dignified by this title is so dark that I can but dimly perceive there are some rough forms and tables in it, and that Bluegown and myself are the only gentlemen of tastes sufficiently literary to be there.

    "Why do they call it the reading-room?" I ask.
    "Cause there ain't nothin' to read there, I s'pose," retorts my friend, seizing my arm and conducting me into another apartment, where he announces with conscious pride that "this is the kitchen."

    This the kitchen ! this the "good kitchen" that Bluegown had so proudly described, and the advantages of which he had so eloquently enumerated. "I ask your pardon, coach," says the Irish proverb, "I thought you were a wheelbarrow when I stumbled over you." If Bluegown had not told me that this was a kitchen, I should have taken it for a magnified rat-hole - so dark, so stenchful, so unwholesome, does it appear. It is a large low-roofed room, furnished with tables and benches which are near relations to those I have already seen in the "reading-room." There is a disused cooking-range at the extreme end, on which I seat myself, and survey the room and its occupants. Most of the latter are dock-labourers, a few are pickpockets; some work in the various markets; some are hawkers, some only "cadgers;" while a shoe-black box or two lying about show that there are some few members of the boot-cleaning fraternity.

    On either side of the range is an open fireplace, in which an enormous coke fire burns fiercely. The hot water about which Bluegown has told me is hissing and boiling in a large copper. There are the tea-pots, plates, cups and saucers, the use of which is included in the value given for your fourpence; and in addition, the proprietor kindly provides with each utensil an enormous quantity of dirt gratis. A thin wan-faced girl, wearing a red frock and looking like a dilapidated Tilly Slowboy, flits, ghostlike, backwards and forwards; but the majority of the guests appear to wait upon themselves. There are gentlemen engaged in culinary operations at each of the fires, and the staple food of the place appears to be "'addicks." Close to me, and bending over the blazing coke, is a man whose villainously ugly face, matted hair, and occupation, forcibly remind me of that illustration in "Oliver Twist" wherein Cruick shank depicts Fagin frying sausages,  surrounded by his worthy friends and hopeful pupils; and, except that the place is larger and the company more numerous, the whole aspect of the room is by no means unlike that of the robber's dwelling as described by the novelist.

    The whole apartment reeks with dirt and filth. The blackened ceiling, the boarded floor, the plastered walls, are all begrimed and bedaubed with the dirt of months past. The atmosphere is stifling. There is not a farmer who breeds pigs for an agricultural show who would suffer one of his porcine treasures to live in a sty so filthy as this room, or to breathe an air so foetid as that in which these men are sitting. Prize pigs, however, have a monetary value, and these poor wretches have none.
   
There are some sitting alone, sullen and disconsolate, speaking to no-one and answering no-one who speaks to them. Others are discussing their appetizing, if not too clean, suppers of whelks, "'addicks," or "sassages"; others, again, are chatting to their neighbours, and some few are enjoying a friendly hand at cards. I cannot understand much of the conversation, but I do grasp sufficient to comprehend what a wonderful amount of scope there is for the exercise of ingenuity in the pleasant and facetious arts of oath-framing and blasphemy.

    While I have been engaged in making these observations, the worthy Bluegown has been heaping coke on each of the enormous fires. He is, as he tells me, "respected in the 'ouse," and nearly every one has a word for him. As I am a stranger, he kindly introduces me to "Ginger-beer," "Copper-head," and "Scotty," gentlemen whose faces, clothes, and conversation are apparently designed to illustrate the positive, comparative, and superlative degrees of the adjective filthy.

    Bluegown also entertains me with some particulars relative to himself and his avocations. He depends principally for a living, he says, on washing the shirts of the frequenters of the house, for which he charges fourpence apiece. I remark that, judging from the filthiness of the garments and the probable unpleasantness of the job, the work is well worth the money.

    "Bless yer," returns Bluegown, "there ain't a real dirty 'un - what I calls a real dirty 'un - 'ere to-night. Some on 'em as I get to wash is covered with wermin. W'en I gets old o' some o' them scaly-backed 'uns, as I calls 'em - haw-haw-haw! I just lays em out on the flags and scrubs em with a blessed long broom. 'Blue-gown,' the chaps says sometimes, 'Bluegown, you scrubs 'em in 'oles more'n a bit, but you do clean 'em, I'll say that for yer.' And by --- some of 'm wants some cleanin,' I tell yer."

    I now have an illustration of the kind of "friendly 'ow-de-do" alluded to by Mr. Bluegown during our conversation in the public-house. A man, evidently in good spirits, and presumably with a large quantity of spirits of some sort in him, lurches unsteadily up the room, and gazing intently at my worthy companion, aims a blow at his mouth which knocks the clay pipe out of it and shatters it to fragments. Notwithstanding his previous injunction to me, my "guide, philosopher, and friend" appears inclined to resent this kindly attention, and makes a remark relative to the eyes and limbs of his assailant which induces that worthy to volunteer his opinion that Mr. Bluegown is a "bloomin' ill-tempered old" something or other which I fail to hear, but which the reader can possibly imagine. Thereupon the injured gentleman expresses sentiments decidedly depreciatory of the chastity of his comrade's mother; and facetiously hints at the existence of a bar sinister in his pedigree. The matter now threatens to become serious; but I effect a reconciliation between the friends by offering Bluegown my own pipe in lieu of the one so unfortunately destroyed. The offer is accepted, and I am grasped violently by the hand, and assured by each party that I am a good fellow of a sanguinary disposition, a compliment so remarkably contradictory in itself that for a moment I hesitate about receiving it without a modest protest.

    So the evening wears on. When the public-houses close the room becomes full; the oaths are more frequent and ingenious; the smell is more unpleasant, and the legs of the company are more unsteady. Most of them, as Mr. Bluegown complacently observes, are " more'n a bit rafferty." The various degrees of intoxication are exemplified to an extent I have never seen before. There is the old cripple in the corner who is "mad drunk," and who is brandishing his wooden leg, and vowing the destruction of any one who comes within its range. There is the sweep opposite him who is merely jovial, and who is hiccoughing out, in his drunken merriment, the disgusting refrain of a repulsive song. There are two old men close to me who have reached the maudlin stage of inebriety, and who are discussing some matter or other with a grotesque solemnity which is inimitable. Lastly, there is that majority of the guests whose intoxication is only made manifest by the thickness of their utterance, the unsteadiness of their nether limbs, and, worst of all, by the foulness of their breath, which makes the atmosphere absolutely unbearable, and determines me to quit the kitchen without delay and seek the couch distinguished by the number 259.

    The night-porter takes me in charge, and shows me where I am to "doss." Up a narrow, ill-lighted staircase we go, the boards creaking unpleasantly beneath our feet, until we reach the second floor. Here the night-porter bids me "good-night," promising to call me at half-past four. And for the first time I begin to realize what a very unpleasant task, to say the least of it, is now before me.

    The room is ill-ventilated, stuffy, and unpleasant. The beds are narrow wooden structures about a foot high, and are packed so closely together that there is no room for a man to stand between them. There are notices at each end of the room, posted in compliance with the Act regulating these places, which state how many beds are permitted by the inspector, whose signature is appended, to be placed in the room. On what principle the inspector acts who attends to the regulation of the Beehive it would be impossible for me to say. Whatever it may chance to be, its absurdity is sufficiently demonstrated by the condition of the dormitory in which I am to pass the night. When I enter there are only about half a dozen dossers in bed, and the room holds several times that number. Yet already the atmosphere is distinctly unwholesome, and one can readily imagine what it wil1 be like when all the beds are occupied by men whose personal cleanliness is an unknown quantity, and who exhale an odour which, however suggestive it may be of the quality of the exciseable liquors sold in the district, is unpleasant in the highest degree.

    I undress, placing my clothes under my pillow, partly to raise it to something like a reasonable height, and partly in order to prevent the disappearance of my apparel during the night - a precaution which is adopted by most in the room, and which speaks volumes as to the character of my neighbours. Turning down the bed-clothes, I discover that the rug, the two dirty sheets, and the scanty coverlid bear this inscription-

"Stolen from
            J. SMITH,
        Beehive Chambers,
            Brick Lane."

So that any larcenous intention I might have harboured is hopelessly frustrated.

    There are insects in the Beehive-but they are not bees. I believe Mark Twain has termed them "chamois"; and "a military officer," whose identity has been lost among the many sons of Mars that flourish on the shores of Green Columbia, has delicately alluded to them as "darned catawampous chawers that graze upon a human purty strong," so "strong," indeed, as to make one temporarily oblivious of the advice tendered by the same gallant officer, "Don't mind them; they're company."

    It is some little time before I am enabled to sleep. The stertorous breathing of my fellow-dossers disturbs. me. Half-drunken and wholly-drunken men are continually lurching up the stairs and knocking against the corners, until I wonder how they contrive to reach the top at all; the noise of street-brawls is borne in through the open windows; and, lastly, "chamois-hunting" occupies a considerable portion of my time, and keeps me, as one of my neighbours observes, "on the kee-veevers." At length I fall asleep, but only for an hour-an hour of restless tossing to and fro, of unrefreshing dozes, of starts and twitchings, and most unpleasant dreams - and then I wake up to find that the room is full now, and that the foul breath of the drunken fellows who lie there like so many hogs, snoring and grunting with far more sonority than melody, has poisoned the air so that it seems almost plague-stricken. Many of them are stark naked; most thin and emaciated; all filthy and wretched. Beds, sheets, coverlids, are all covered with vermin, and the walls are spotted with foul creeping things almost as large as cockroaches. It is disgusting! It is horrible!

Hastily, and with a feeling of inexpressible nausea, I huddle on my clothes. Down the stairs I creep, and through the dirty passage into the grey dawn-light. The cool morning breeze feels more delicious than words can express, and to me, hot and fevered, sick and faint as I am, it is the keenest of pleasures to feel that I am quit of the horrible place in which the last few hours have been spent. I would not mortgage the prospect of a change of garments and a. bath for all the fabled wealth of El Dorado. Uppermost among the thoughts that struggle for utterance is the reflection that they told me that the den I have just left was "one of the best of the 'ouses;" and as I hurry through the almost deserted streets I murmur to myself, "Great God! What must the worst be!"

[Hiram Abiff]

CHAPTER III.

"COONEY'S."

THE resolution I had formed to persevere in my investigations was, as the reader will readily imagine, severely shaken by my experiences at the Beehive. The squalor, the destitution, the repulsiveness of the dossers' language, the foul smells, the vermin-covered rugs and sheets - these were enough to turn me from my purpose. " It is, after all," I argued with myself "no business of mine. I can do no good. If the public is aware of the existence of these haunts of destitution and degradation, my interference will benefit no one. If, on the other hand, they are ignorant of the state of things, does not that very ignorance demonstrate their apathy?" Possibly this reasoning was correct, and I should have done better in my own interest, and no worse in the interest of the inhabitants of common lodging-houses, had I relinquished the idea of examining into the truth of the reports which had reached me. But it appeared to me that it would have been the veriest cowardice to have abandoned altogether a task which I firmly believe to have been none the less necessary because self-imposed; and I was not without hope that the things to be seen and heard in the various low lodging-houses might, if faithfully narrated without extenuation or exaggeration, speak for themselves, and, sounding clarion-tongued, direct popular attention to great and crying evils.

    Animated by this feeling, therefore, I have pursued the course which I was at first inclined to abandon. I have visited, in the guise of an ordinary "out o' work" who is compelled to go "where the devil drives," many of the worst as welt as the best of the common lodging-houses of London. One which is is in great request is Cooney's - or, stay, I am in error and should re-write this sentence. Let it read: Some which are in great request are Cooney's ;-for that enterprising gentleman owns several lodging-houses, all of which are, I believe, situated in Thrawl Street, Spitalfields.

    This thoroughfare, though short and narrow, contains probably as much destitution and depravity as any that are wider and more pretentious. It leads only from Commercial Street into Brick Lane, and in that short distance are concentrated elements of discord and degradation sufficient to shock even the most callous. The dwelling-houses are all poor and mean; the gutters in the daytime are full of squalling children; and refuse of all sorts is lying about in every direction. When closing-time comes, and the dram-shops and gin-palaces have sent their contingent to reinforce the representatives of sinning and suffering humanity that crowd the unwholesome street, Thrawl Street is "a thing to shudder at, not to see." Women who have reached the lowest depth of degradation to which their sex can sink, are rolling unsteadily along the footpath, or quarrelling in front of the public-houses from which they have just been expelled. Men are fighting, swearing, and hiccoughing out snatches of objectionable songs. Babies, who have been taken in their mothers' arms to the drinking dens which rob them of their food and clothing, are wailing loudly; and the noise of quarrelling, intoxication, and lamentation, are to be heard on every side. It is needless to say, therefore, that it is the happy hunting-ground of "doss-'ouse keepers," and that nearly every second house is a common lodging- house.

    A few doors up this Elysian thoroughfare, on the right-hand side, stands a low, mean-looking house, from the door of which issue forth sounds of profanity and drunken revelry. The dirty yellow canvas blinds that ornament the windows bear the delusive inscription-

J. COONEY'S GOOD LODGINGS
        SINGLE BED 4D. DOUBLE BED 8D.

Attracted by this announcement, I stepped into the doorway one evening and asked, "Can I have a bed?" A coarse-looking girl, with a shrill voice, and an eye which said, "Don't try to trifle with me," bounced out of a little kitchen, surveyed me from head to foot, and, apparently satisfied with her inspection, said sharply, "Yes, fourpence." Snatching the coppers from my hand, she pointed to the opposite door and remarked, "There's another kitchen there; you'd better go there." The hint clearly meant, "You must go there," for the young lady was being entertained by several gentlemen with some stories, in the chaste mirth derived from which she evidently did not wish a stranger to participate.

    Into the "other kitchen," therefore, I bent my steps. A more disagreeable place I never wish to see. It was a small room surrounded on three sides with a sort of counter, in front of which stood some rough wooden benches. An enormous coke fire made me end of the apartment unbearably hot, and the pen door rendered the other end cold in an equally unpleasant degree. On one side of the fire was a sadder-staircase leading to another "kitchen" underground; on the other side a passage which led, I was informed, to the "bedrooms" (!) for married couples. On the right-hand side was a door opening into a small paved yard, in which certain necessary accommodation was erected. On the occasion of my visit this yard was in au abominably filthy condition, and every time the door which gave access to it was opened, a horrible stench pervaded the little "kitchen," compelling the uninitiated stranger to brave the draught at the entrance in order to obtain a little fresh air - or what in Thrawl Street is so designated. The walls and ceilings were black and dirty, but the boarded floor had evidently been washed within a comparatively recent period. This was the only redeeming feature about the apartment, which, in every other respect, was stuffy, close, ill-ventilated, and stenchful beyond expression.

    On the benches a couple of lads were stretched snoring. They must have been tired indeed to have been able to sleep with the Babel around them. One man was eating a supper, of course consisting of the inevitable "addick," while another was discussing the existence of religion with a loud voice, an abundance of gesture, and an equal abundance, perhaps a superfluity, of oaths. There were only three ladies there when I entered: one a very respectable-looking old person in black, whom I soon discovered to be about the worst of the lot, as far as blasphemy and obscenity were concerned; the second was the help-meet of the gentleman who had such a rooted antipathy to religion, and she sat listening in open-mouthed wonder to his eloquence; and the third was a girl, who sat on the hearth with her head against the side of the mantelpiece, fast asleep. There was a worn, weary expression on her countenance that was pitiful to see. She was quite young, and had probably been pretty, but her face was flushed, her eyes were sunken, and want and suffering - and possibly vice also - had robbed her of whatever charms she had possessed. She was a specimen of a class - the saddest class existing - the withered flowers in humanity's garden.

    The other occupants of the room at this period of the evening were about half a dozen cats of various sizes and hues. These appeared to be an "institution" at Cooney's, and were allowed to do pretty well as they liked, much to the annoyance of the old lady in black. "She couldn't abide 'em," she said; "they reminded her of so many witches." There are eleven words in this expression of opinion as recorded here, but as originally delivered there were certainly double that number, the difference being accounted for by oaths and expletives, which, in a "condensed report," it is undesirable to reproduce. The cats, however, were not entirely unnecessary - at all events so observed a gentleman who entered at this moment, and who lodged regularly in the house. He had that morning been disturbed by a rat upon his couch. Perhaps it may be said - and not unfairly - that people who pay fourpence a night for their lodgings should not be particular about trifles; but this gentleman, who was a cripple, and an extraordinarily foul-mouthed one, seemed to have an antipathy to rats just as keen as the objection to their natural enemies entertained by the old lady in black.

    To me, personally, however, rodents were less interesting than human beings, and I directed my attention to the contemplation of the latter. From the underground kitchen already referred to issued every few minutes a flaxen-haired child about eight years of age, clad in the tattered remains of an old red frock. Her face wore a wonderfully old and cunning expression, but was wofully pale and wasted withal. Her arms looked thin and - there is no other expression that will serve - brittle, as though you could have snapped them with a touch. Each time that she  emerged from the other kitchen carrying some article of domestic use, she passed through the passage on the other side, where she was greeted with sounds as of a drunken mother's upbraidings. By and by - she had been at work more than an hour, and this was nearly midnight - she brought a little child up in her arms, and, stumbling at every step (for her burden was far too heavy for her), disappeared in the passage for the last time that evening. She did her work well, poor little thing, but in a dull, heart-broken Sort of way, and the expression on her poor pinched face said as plainly as words could do, "Won't anybody help me?"

    Meanwhile, the conversation had been going on apace, and the room had grown fuller and more unwholesome. The oratorical gentleman had held forth in turn upon questions of religion, military discipline, church ritual, political economy, jurisprudence, medical science, and the higher education of women. It is but fair to him to say that he knew just as much upon one subject as another, and in order to show the extent of his information, it is only necessary to state that he had a firm impression that the Premier for the time being must be ex-officio head of the Church of England. An endeavour to explain the difference between a minister of state and a minister of religion was repulsed with more force than courtesy; but it should be distinctly affirmed that the oracle of the doss-'ouse was so firmly convinced of the exactitude of his information and the extent of his knowledge, that he rarely made an assertion with out calling on the Deity to deprive him of sight if what he stated were not the indisputable and irrefragable truth.

    Let me for a few moments act as flunkey, and chronicle the arrival of the guests in due order. First, then, a man entered the room with a sleeping child in his arms, and, laying it down on one of the counters or tables, sat down beside me. The child, he said, in answer to my inquiry, was two years old, and he added that his wife was at that moment out with another aged two months. She had gone to a relative's to try and borrow some money, for they had been walking about all day and hadn't a copper. They, he said, sadly, could stay out all night, but what were they to do about the children a chilly night like this. "Surely they wouldn't turn those babies out in the cold night air. " "Wouldn't they?" replied he, with a short laugh. "It's not much credit they gives at this shop. I've slep' 'ere now these two months, but if the brass ain't to be found I shall 'ave to sleep out all night, and the kids too. I don't say they'd want it all, but I must give 'em some; p'r'aps they'd trust me half, but that's a question." Here his wife came in, a poor, thin, evidently consumptive woman. Her errand had failed. That was written in her face. It was pitiful to see the despairing matter-of-course way in which, without a word, the man silently took up the child and prepared to leave the room and the house - but for that night at least they were not compelled to make their bed in the streets.

    The next arrival was an old Irishwoman, big, gaunt, and shrivelled. I found some difficulty in comprehending the greeting she gave us. It may be that she was only "uttering many a backward prayer that sounded like a curse." But the effect of her salutation was by no means pleasant, and she was fervently adjured, with many a forcible illustration of the meaning of the speakers, to "keep a civil tongue in yer 'ead." These appeals were not altogether successful. The lady included the whole company in a general execration, and, approaching the fire, lamented that she had neither a pipe nor the money to purchase one. With the view of conciliating her, I took mine out of my mouth and handed it over to her; but I frankly admit that had I been prepared for the consequences, I should have restrained my impulsive generosity. "Alas!" says Byron,
        "Alas! the love of woman! it is known
        To be a lovely and a fearful thing."

    It is particularly fearful, and not in the least lovely, when the woman is old, ugly, and about three-fourths drunk, and the object of her passion nervous, embarrassed, and by no means disposed to reciprocate her tender sentiments. Yet there I was with that old hag making the most violent love to me. "I was of her own colour," she assured me, "and she loved me for it." Of her own colour! I was dirty enough, in all conscience, but I was by far the cleanest in the place, and by many shades less black than my demonstrative admirer. But nothing would quieten the old beldame.She sat down beside me, and in a voice about as melodious as the croaking of a very asthmatic frog, she told me her whole history - in which, of course, I was compelled to feign an interest. Every moment she became more and more ardent, and I more confused; and that miserable cripple sat opposite, evidently keenly relishing the humour of the scene, and by no means indisposed to add to my embarrassment. "She's going to kiss you, man," he shouted at length and I was off "like a shot," amidst the guffaws of the entire company. I walked up and down outside the house until I saw the amorous lady wobble unsteadily along the passage that led to her bed-chamber, when I returned, and, sooth to say, somewhat sheepishly took the place I had so precipitately vacated. The seat previously occupied by the love-sick Hibernian was filled now by a decent woman, who wore a wedding-ring; the only female in the room who did so, or who had a claim to one. She was feeding her child, a pretty little boy, with bits of bread and morsels of fried fish ; and when he could eat no more, she commenced her own supper. That being ended, quietly, indeed without a word save a general good-night, she also passed into the passage by the fire and so to bed. But though she had not spoken, there was a world of eloquence in her widow's dress, in the tender care she bestowed upon the child, even in the manner of her shrinking from the conversation. She had "seen better days," and perhaps the best prayer that one could offer on her behalf would be that the memory of those "better days" may never be effaced. If it be bitter, it may at least be preventative of a condition in which no gentle thought appears to exist, and into which no recollection of a happier past, no hope of a brighter future, seems to enter.

    I saw only one more arrival that night - another old Irishwoman hideously ugly and hopelessly inebriated. Down the one step into the "kitchen" she plunged, rather than walked, and lurched into the middle of the room, where she stood for a moment with an expression of maudlin contentment. "Ain't I - hic - bloomin' drunk?" she asked, as though there could be even a shadow of a doubt upon the subject. Then, walking sinuously up to the fireplace, she produced a short and unutterably filthy black pipe, lighted it against the glowing cokes, and seating herself on the end of a form, started smoking like - literally like -  "a house afire." At every puff she vented an eructation which filled the room with an ether more spirituous than spiritual. I could bear it no longer. I am not, I hope, unduly fastidious, but the sight and smell were too much for my nerves, and, leaving the room, I intimated my desire to seek repose.
   
The damsel who had ordered me into the "other kitchen," called out to some one who was ascending the stairs, "Bill, show this man to bed ; he sleeps in number sixteen - by you, yer know." "Come on, old chap," cried Bill, and I meekly followed.
   
"The way into the parlour"- I beg pardon, the bedroom - "was up a winding stair, and such a winding stair. That staircase was a wonderful example of perverted ingenuity; how any one could have planned and executed a structure so steep, so narrow, and so in every respect uncomfortable, is a problem of which no satisfactory solution suggests itself. But the bedroom was emphatically a pleasant surprise. Anywhere else than in a common lodging-house, it would probably have been termed a dirty comfortless hole enough. But remembering the state of things generally obtaining in a doss-'ouse, there was much cause for satisfaction on my part. There were only four beds in the room - that is to say, it was a place in which three people could have slept without being half poisoned, and it was only compelled to hold four; and candour compels me to state that if all kip-'ouses were as well regulated, there would be less cause for complaint.

    Bill undressed and got into bed. He was a lad of about nineteen, pleasant and good-humoured enough, and even if "his manners had not that repose that stamps the caste of Vere de Vere," he did not make use of more than one oath to every half-dozen words; and this, as every one will admit, was a comparatively small proportion. He enlightened me on several points. Mr. Cooney, he said, had once been as poor as he or I, but now he was worth thousands. The place in which we were was the smallest of his houses, but also, in the opinion of my informant, the best and cleanest; and altogether, if a fellow were not unreasonable, Cooney's was rather a desirable sort of habitation. Here the half-inch of candle which was provided for our accommodation incontinently went out, and Bill turned on his side and sought obliviousness in sleep.

I saw no rats; but there were plenty of "chamois" and "small deer" of that kind. Quite enough, at any rate, to induce me to get quietly up when the grey light of morning was first stealing over the heavens, and to hasten homewards with the firm resolve that if ever I were compelled to live in an hotel for any length of time, no circumstances would make me eschew other hostelries in favour of "Cooney's."

[Hiram Abiff]

CHAPTER IV.

"KIP-'OUSE KIDS."

OF all the sad features in connection with the depravity and degradation of low London lodging-houses, none is more lamentable than the existence of children amidst scenes such as are there of everyday occurrence; and which blunt the moral sense as surely as the overcrowding, stench and filth stunt the physical growth of the little ones thus familiarized with them. A few words relative to the condition of these children, to the sort of existence to which they are condemned, and to the certain results of the training which they receive, may not be altogether ill-timed or out of place.

    Take, for example, a similar case to that of the two-months-old baby at Cooney's. That child was born in the workhouse. As soon as the mother had recovered from the effects of her confinement, she relinquished the hospitality of the parish, and joined her husband. Now, not all the hardships attendant upon workhouse life, not all the miseries of parish baby-farming - if that still exist - are at all comparable to what that child, and the thousands of children  reared under similar circumstances, will have to endure. It is reared amongst all sorts of filth and impurity. From a sanitary point of view its surroundings could not possibly be worse. Often, when the parents are unable to find their "doss-money" and are without a roof to cover them, the baby is carried about during the whole night, no matter how inclement or tempestuous be the weather. Perhaps it dies - often, happily, the end is speedy - from continued exposure to the rigours of the weather, and the unhealthiness of its surroundings. But oftener it contracts some disease which leaves it in the saddest state in which childhood can exist - prematurely worn out with suffering, stunted, unhealthy, and, worst of all, perhaps destined to live for years. Almost every child I have seen in lodging-houses - and I have seen very many - has been suffering more or less from ophthalmia, or some other form of eye-disease. Many die yearly from consumption and kindred ailments. Typhoid fever, induced by the foul smells and heated mephitic atmosphere, is common, and scrofulous and syphilitic disorders are frequently to be found amongst these unhappy little ones.

    But even if the child survive the first few months of its infancy, and prove in the succeeding years impervious to the attacks of damp, foul smells, imperfect sanitation, and the chronic personal uncleanliness which is produced by continued existence in lodging-houses, it is by no means certain that the ill-usage which is so frequently the lot of children reared in them will fail to break up even a naturally strong constitution. The Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children might do worse than look after the interest of the "kip-'ouse kids" now and then; for parents, not necessarily naturally cruel, become brutalized by their surroundings, and it is a fact that the existence of the majority of their poor little ones is only a prolonged weariness and torture. Go into any of these places and see the children who are brought up in them. Little girls of eight and nine years old are doing work which would tax the strength of many twice their age - doing it well enough, but in that dull, despondent way that shows only too clearly how little the heart has to do with the labour of the hands. The boys, if your visit be made in the daytime, will probably not be there, for as they are no good at house-work, and do not make the best of nurses for the younger children, they are, as a rule, trained from the earliest possible age to "make themselves useful" by begging, even if they are not taught the art of pocket-picking. It is hardly an exaggeration to say that, as a result of this kind of existence, you will never see a lodging-house child looking happy. If it has not just had a beating, the odds are that it is expecting one; and even if it should happen that its parents are not unkind nor neglectful, but only miserably poor, what chance of happiness, what chance even of physical development, can there be for those reared amongst perpetual unwholesomeness, moral and material.

    But the surroundings of the children brought up in the common lodging-houses of the metropolis are  soul-destroying as well as physically injurious. Their companions are the children of thieves and beggars; their guides and instructors are thieves and beggars themselves. The language that is constantly used in their hearing is of the foulest. The habits practised by those who surround them are filthy and degrading. Their parents and companions are ignorant of; or inimical to, religion. In many cases such children never hear the name of God at all, unless it is associated with a curse. Nor must it be forgotten that many of them have never seen, nor are they ever likely to see, the inside of a school. Their parents, or many of them, have a rooted and inveterate objection to education. "It makes the kids cocky," said one man to me, "and puts em above their perfession" - the said "perfession" being in most cases begging or stealing. The parents are enabled to avoid sending their little ones to school, mainly because they have no fixed residence, and it is difficult to follow them up; and partly, also, because of the natural reluctance of school-board officers to penetrate into the worst of these dens. A gentleman whom I met in a lodging- house in Flower and Dean Street, one of the most detestable slums in London, told me that there wasn't a school-board officer in the metropolis who would "dare to show is ugly mug 'ere." Now, take a very liberal discount off this statement if you like - and probably, having regard to the character of my informant, you will be right in doing so; it is nevertheless absolutely certain that there are many common lodging-houses in London in which it would be decidedly unpleasant, if not absolutely dangerous, for a school-board officer to make his appearance. Nor does the pernicious influence of the lodging-house end with the prevention of the child from learning anything good. That is only the negative side of the subject; but it would be impossible to express the amount of evil with which such children are from their earliest infancy familiarized. Many of the common lodging- houses, nearly all in fact, in which men and women both are admitted, are houses of ill-fame. It is of course possible, by a stringent use of the existing law, to remove children of tender years from the guardianship of those who live in immoral houses. But as regards a doss-'ouse, these provisions are practically inoperative. Proof of its being a house of ill-repute would be difficult to obtain, because the neighbours being, most of them, "in the same box," would neither complain nor give evidence. Vigilance societies appear to leave the common lodging-houses severely alone. Perhaps they do not desire to penetrate into secrets which are difficult to learn, or have no access to information which it is painful to obtain. I have frequently heard "solicitations," couched in the vilest, the most disgusting language, made by women to men in the kitchen of a doss-'ouse, and that while children, and female children, were looking on and listening. What future can be expected for a girl whose youth - nay, whose earliest childhood - is passed in a house of ill-fame, where not even the thinnest veil is drawn over immorality that would revolt the soul of the most callous, and whose ears are familiarized with conversation the loathsomeness of which is almost beyond conception; and who is taught day by day, by precept and example, to see little or no harm in a career which, when, as often happens, work is slack and food scarce, is frequently adopted without hesitation or compunction, and in many cases without even the knowledge of sin. For my own part I cannot see why the provisions of the law should not be enforced against immoral houses where the cost of a bed is eightpence, with the same severity which is directed against one in which it is eight shillings.

    It would be ungracious and unfair not to acknowledge the salutary work which is, year after year, carried out amongst these by the various "Homes" and other institutions which are established for their rescue. The East London Juvenile Mission (better known as Dr. Barnardo's Homes) has done, and is doing, an immense amount of good in this direction; but, as will be readily supposed, only the fringe of the shame and misery unhappily existent can be touched by the labours of this and kindred institutions. And it is no exaggeration to say that, in the generality of instances, the condition of "kip-'ouse kids" is practically this - physically they are weak, mentally they are neglected, and morally they are, in nine cases out of ten, ruined.

    Here, for example, is an instance in which is exemplified each of these three facts. The particulars I can vouch for as being absolutely accurate, and it should be distinctly understood that it is not an exceptional or isolated case. Denis O------ is now in one of the largest metropolitan institutions for the reception and training of destitute children. One of the rescue officers attached to that truly noble and philanthropic work found this little fellow at midnight in Flower and Dean Street. The public-houses were just closing, and the child, who is only ten years old, and very small for his age - as are, indeed, most of the children found in common lodging-houses - was surrounded by a group of prostitutes of the lowest possible type, who were quarrelling, fighting, blaspheming, and cursing as only such women can. Denis was clad in an overcoat - and only an overcoat. It had probably originally belonged to his father, and was torn in a hundred places, being held together almost entirely by the pins which were ingeniously disposed about the various parts of the garment. He wore neither shoes nor stockings; but just as some tribes of savages, however ill-clad in other respects, usually affect a coat-of paint - so this little fellow's feet were to some extent protected by the mud which was literally caked on them. It had probably been there for some weeks, and, had not a bath been placed within the child's reach by his admission to the home, would possibly have remained there for some weeks longer. His head was unprotected, save by the shock of matted, unkempt hair that covered it, and he was shivering with cold. And here is Master Denis's account of himself:-

"How old are you?"
    "Ten, sir."
    "Where do you live?"
    "In Flowrydean Street."
    "Whereabouts?"
    "In a kip - doss - I mean lodgin'-'ouse, sir."
    "What does your father do?"
     "Please, sir, e gets drunk, sir."
     "No, no; I mean what is he by trade?"
     "Works in the market, sir."
    "Ah! Now, he gets drunk, you say?"
    "Yes, sir; 'e gets drunk every Tuesday and every Saturday" (and then after a pause), "and every Monday, too, sir."
    "That is, he gets drunk every day, I suppose?"
    "Yes, sir; and mother, she gets drunk too."
    "Now, what were you going to do when this gentleman found you?"
    "I was goin' to doss out, sir."
    "Why?"
    "'Cause I was afraid mother'd beat me."
    "Why, what had you been doing?"
    "Nothin', sir."
    "Oh, nonsense. Now, what had you been doing?"
    "I wouldn't go of an arrand, sir."
    "I see. Does mother often beat you?"
    "Yes, sir."
    "And father?"
    " On'y when he's drunk, sir."
    "And when you're afraid of a beating you doss out, eh?"
    "Yes, sir. Sometimes I gets 'ome afore mother, an' creeps under her bed an' sleeps there, so she don't find me."
    "I see. Anything else?"
    "Sometimes I sleeps in the passage, and sometimes on the stairs."
    "How long have you been living in the lodging-house?"
    "Always ; I've always lived there, sir."
    "Have you ever been to school?"
    "Yes, sir; three weeks, sir."
    "Three weeks! and you ten years old; is that really all?"
    "Yes, sir; mother wouldn't let me go, sir."

The child went on to say that he was hungry, and that he never had enough to eat - a fact of which his pale and sunken features and thin limbs afforded tolerably complete corroborative evidence. It must be understood, however, that at the time he made this statement the little fellow was by no means certain that he would not be handed back to his parents, and he was to a considerable extent restrained by the possibility of their knowing what he had said, and his fear of a consequent beating. Notwithstanding, however, the reticence thus induced, enough can be gleaned from his story to show the sort of life led by the "doss'-ouse" child. Poor little wretch! Half starved, accustomed all his life to filthy and squalid surroundings; forced to sleep in the open air through his dread of the blows of a harsh and drunken mother; bred in ignorance and reared in fear; what, but for the fortunate chance of his falling into the hands of the officers of the refuge, would have been his fate?

    This: he would in all human probability have gone to swell the ranks of the reinforcements which, year by year, these lodging-houses send to the already overwhelmingly large army of thieves and harlots. This it is that makes the condition of these children a matter, not of local or parochial; but of national importance. In these dens are being brought up, in increasingly large numbers, unhappy beings who know little of the ordinary decencies, less of the comforts, and absolutely nothing of the pleasures of life. Their numbers are swelling, their power is magnifying, and if we continue to ignore the existence of their miseries the day of reckoning will assuredly come.

    What, then, is to be done? Obviously, the only real cure, as far as the children bred in common lodging-houses are concerned, would be to make such lodging-houses more decent, more comfortable, and more pleasant. Later on in these pages an attempt will be made to show how this can be accomplished; hut there are a variety of minor matters to which attention may fairly be given, and which, if vigorously taken in hand, would do much to make the condition of the little ones of whom Denis O--- is a specimen, and of other children who are nearly as poor and as much to be pitied, more tolerable and less unhappy.

    Firstly, more care should be taken to secure the attendance of these children at school. This is really more difficult task than would appear at first sight. The parents are continually moving from one lodging-house to another, and the children themselves are in many cases most unwilling to go to school - more than usually unwilling, in fact, and that is saying a great deal. School to most of them is what gaol is to their elders; and to all it is unpleasant, because they are worse clad, worse fed, and more miserable than the majority of their fellow-scholars, and are therefore liable to be mocked at and held in derision. The old fable of the sun and the wind applies here. The objection entertained by children to the schoolroom is not likely to be outrooted by the coercion of the School Board officer; but it might be overleapt if; among other inducements, a great impetus were afforded to the movement for giving children of very poor parents a free dinner once or twice a week, and if that dinner were made conditional on regularity of attendance. We have recently heard a great deal about over- pressure in elementary schools, and there are many who think-not perhaps without much reason-that a little less cramming of heads, and a little more cramming of-well, of another region-might not be inadvisable. Be this as it may, however, it is at least certain that the prospect of an occasional meal, that should consist of something other and more toothsome than dry bread flavoured by a box on the ears, would be a powerful incentive to children to forsake the gutters and seek the Board Schools, and would do something, at any rate, to atone for the lack of nourishment that is experienced by them in their own squalid homes.

    So much for the mental and physical improvement of the waifs of the common lodging-houses. A word now upon the question of their moral regeneration. They live in an atmosphere frequently of vice and crime, and almost invariably, at the very best, of indifference to any faith or creed whatever. Where, then, could be the harm of imparting to them, when they are attending school, something of the elementary truths of religion - not denominational or sectarian religion, but merely those broad principles which are the basis of all morality and the fundament on which all human laws rest? I do not mean by this to say a word in advocacy of the absurd plan recently, I believe, adopted by the London School Board, viz., a triennial examination in religious subjects - a plan which involves "cramming" on the one subject of all others in which cramming should be most strongly discountenanced. What I venture to suggest would be regular and methodical religious instruction, such as is given in the Board Schools of many provincial towns, where there is far less necessity for it. "It is not the business of the State to teach religion," say some. True. It is not, strictly speaking, the business of the State to teach anything at all. But it is the interest of the State that those who are growing up in our midst should not be ignorant, and it is equally its interest that they should not be godless. Here, in the midst of a city whose wealth and magnificence are the envy of the whole civilized world, are thousands of children annually growing up who are learning to ignore, if not to despise, those fundamental truths on which our system of morality is based, and on which the stability of our institutions depends. Do they not, in some sort, constitute a danger to the State? Are we not, in neglecting their spiritual wants when we have undertaken to minister to their mental and intellectual  requirements, drawing down upon ourselves that punishment which follows upon the crimes or the neglect-and the latter not infrequently amounts to the former-of nations as well as of individuals? Let no one say, "It is not our business." Much, very much, has been done; but more remains to do. Remember, the text "Inasmuch as ye have done it unto one of the least of these," cuts both ways. The children who are reared amidst the shame and squalor of the lodging-houses are witnesses against us, and their wrongs cry out for redress;-
    "They look up with their pale and sunken faces,
        And their look is dread to see;
    For they mind you of the angels in high places,
        With eyes turned on Deity.
    They know the grief of man without its wisdom,
        They sink in man's despair without its calm;
    Are slaves without the liberty of Christdom,
        Are martyrs by the pang without the palm."

[Hiram Abiff]

CHAPTER V.

"WILSON'S."

"OLD DRURY "has witnessed the production of many a drama of what is generally, but not altogether sympathetically, termed "low life." The author of such a play need not have far to seek for his material. Clustered around the theatre lie many courts and alleys, the denizens of which exemplify the very lowest depth of misery and degradation to which suffering humanity can sink. When, at night, the last carriage has rolled away from the entrance, bearing its load of silk-clad and diamond-garnished pleasure-seekers; when the last Hansom door has been opened, the last "box o' lights sold, the last copper begged - the host of poverty-stricken wretches who have hung about for hours betake themselves to the squalid dens from which they issued in the morning. Mendicants, pickpockets, match-sellers, shoeblacks, flower-girls, who have been waiting in the hope of earning a few coppers beyond their "doss money," start homewards-and as Drury Lane itself grows gradually quiet and soon almost deserted, the narrow, stenchful slums around become crowded with people, and noisy with the shouts and objurgations of dissolute men and women in various stages of intoxication. One of these delightful places is Parker Street. I have never seen it in the daytime, but at night it is the very embodiment of all that is most disgusting and offensive; though, alas! it is neither better nor worse than most of the narrow and unwholesome streets that are to be found in the neighbourhood, but is to a large extent typical of the majority of the slums in which common lodging-houses are to be found. Children lie on the pavement and in the gutters. You trip over them as you pass, and they either gather themselves up as if they were well used to it, or, if they are old enough to speak, assail you with a shrill curse that sounds horrible upon their baby-lips. On either side of the way the houses are mean and dilapidated. The doorways are filled with creatures who were once men and women, but whom the miseries attendant on lodging- house life, and their own evil habits, have reduced to something below the level of beasts of burden. Some of the "kip-'ouses" are set apart for the softer sex; others accommodate both men and women, and others again are exclusively tenanted by the sterner portion of humanity.

    It was to one of the latter that on a warm spring evening I bent my steps. "Wilson's" is fairly well known to the fraternity who dwell in "doss-'ouses," and, as such places go, has not a bad reputation. When I approached, the "deppity" was standing outside indulging in some strongly-flavoured chaff with some customers who had not yet succeeded in obtaining the fourpences necessary to procure their hotel accommodation. He was a short, thick-set man with mutton-chop whiskers, and a decidedly good-humoured, if not too clean, countenance. My errand having been explained and my fourpence deposited in his dirty palm, he conducted me into a small paved yard. Words cannot adequately describe the unutterably unpleasant smell which pervaded this little enclosure, by reason of the sanitary accommodation ranged round it, which was in an intolerably filthy condition. The deputy led the way into the "kitchen," which was neither more nor less than a cellar; access to it being obtained by a short ladder-staircase running from the yard. The usual combination of counter-tables and wooden benches constituted the furniture; and, if anything, the room was rather more dirty than the "kitchens" previously described. The odour which hung around the yard above was wafted into the room; and the guests who were partaking of the hospitality of Mr. Wilson were as dirty as the room, the furniture, and the cooking-utensils. It is impossible to say more than this, for, to speak truly, it would be most difficult to find a more unwholesome place than that "kitchen," reeking as it was with dirt, smelling most foully, and heated to excess by the coke fire at one end. There was, however, one exception to the general filth. This was a gentleman who was sitting near the fireplace, and who was simply and comfortably clad in a pair of - well, never mind - in a single garment, for he had  been washing his shirt and it was hanging upon a hook above his head to dry. Perhaps it was because he felt ill-at-ease with a clean skin that he was so exceedingly filthy in his conversation. But as the other occupants of the "kitchen" were snoring on the benches, he was compelled to hold communion only with the "deputy," who, to do him justice, soon disclosed conspicuous ability in the ingenious and artistic method of talk that generally commends itself to the dosser. By and by, however, the company was augmented by the arrival of a "cadger," an old man, whose body was bent almost double with the weight of years, and whose countenance was distorted with horrible grimaces as he counted the few coppers that he had "earned," and lamented the hardness of the times. And here let me remark, in parenthesis, that, from what I have been enabled to see of the many professional beggars who frequent common lodging-houses, I am disposed to entirely disbelieve those stories which are universally current as to the profits of the "cadger's" calling. It is often said that the sturdy men we see tramping the streets seeking alms, earn far more by those means than in all probability they would from honest unskilled labour; and there is no doubt that this belief restrains the generosity of many who would otherwise assist the peripatetic beggar. For my own part-speaking, of course, from the experience gained by association with such men in common lodging-houses - I am bound to assert that the majority of them hate and detest their "profession" with all their hearts, and are only driven to it by sheer necessity and the irresistible influence of grinding poverty. And further, that the sums "earned" by them are by no means so large as is generally supposed, and in the preponderating number of instances are absolutely infinitesimal.

    The reader will surmise from the descriptions given m preceding pages that the "kitchen" of a common lodging-house is not the most agreeable place in which to spend the evening; but as far as Wilson's is concerned, I can only say that the Beehive was Elysium, and Cooney's pleasantness itself when compared to this horrible hovel, though I am constrained to admit that I have seen many worse both before and since. However, I did not remain there long. The shirtless gentleman having notified his desire to seek repose, I expressed myself willing to do likewise, and he was requested by the deputy to show me to my couch. "This chap," he was informed, "will sleep in Slasher's bed;" and with a good-night I departed to seek the bed-chamber which was assigned to me.

    Oh, those stairs! Tortuous, winding, creaking, broken, and festooned with cobwebs, I thought we should never reach the top. The half-inch of doll's candle with which my conductor had been entrusted shed a feeble - a very feeble - light, and by the time that the ascent was completed my shins were decidedly uncomfortably bruised. But when, at last, our dormitory was reached, I felt less resigned than ever to the prospect of spending the night under Mr. Wilson's roof. It was very small, very stuffy, and there were - horribile dictu! - eight beds in it. If a room of that size - imperfectly ventilated as it was - had had three people sleeping in it, it would have been unpleasant for all of them; but the idea of eight men, most of them half-drunk and all by no means cleanly, lying in such a place seemed to me then, as it does now, absolutely revolting. It was, of course, impossible to ascertain the size of the room by measurement without attracting the notice of my neighbours, or I should most assuredly have endeavoured to do so; but I am almost certain that, shamefully lax as are the requirements of the existing law, they were at the time of my visit to Parker Street most imperfectly complied with. However, the place is periodically "inspected," and we must suppose therefore that it is permissible for the proprietors of a "doss-'ouse" to half poison his lodgers, and compel them to inhale an atmosphere which would be regarded as intolerable at any well-regulated sewage-wharf.

    When my guide and I entered the room, however, there was only one other occupant, a gentleman of colour who was irreverently addressed as "Darkie." My companion soon denuded himself of his one garment, placed himself gingerly on his bed as though he feared it would collapse under his weight - a catastrophe which, by the way, was not at all impossible - and lighting a very dirty and disreputable-looking pipe, commenced to smoke. The odour of the worst kind of shag tobacco is not, as a rule grateful to one's olfactory nerves; but in this case it was decidedly welcome, for it served, to some extent, to dissipate the infinitely fouler smell which pervaded the room. The smoker, apparently, had something on his mind which prevented him from enjoying his pipe to the full extent. At last he gazed for a moment at "Darkie," in order to see if he were asleep, and, removing the pike from his mouth, gave me the following friendly advice, garnished with a few oaths to which, as an old American backwoods farmer once observed, "I can't do jestice," and which I therefore omit.

    "Look ere, cocky, I tell yer if you've any wish to keep yer togs safe put 'em under yer piller; an' if yer've got any money, take care no one don't 'ear it chink."

    "Why?" said I, assuming an air of innocence; "surely no one would rob a man as badly off as themselves!"

    "I don't say they would, an' I don't say they wouldn't, but I do know that when there is a cove robbed it ain't very pleasant to us as sleeps 'ere reglar; so I just give yer that bit of advice. Things o' that sort 'as been done 'ere, and as you don't seem as if you was much used to these sort o' cribs, it's as well to take care."

    Of course I thanked my mentor, who received my expressions of gratitude with a sort of surly good-nature which seemed to say, "I thought I ought to tell you, but p'r'aps it was scarcely fair to spoil my pals' chances. It was some time before I could make up ny mind to divest myself of my clothing, but I did so at length and laid myself on the bed assigned to me. Such a bed ! All of those at Wilson's were abominable, but I firmly believe that an unkind fate had assigned the worst of the lot to me. All the structures on which we were condemned for our sins to recline were the usual lodging-house pieces of upholstery, narrow and dirty, and raised but a very little way from the floor. But they differed from "the ruck" in that they were more than usually rotten and dilapidated, and seemed to be held together by some occult means known only to the proprietor or the deputy. Creak! creak! creak! they went, every time one turned or moved in the slightest degree, till it was impossible to avoid wondering how they were prevented from tumbling incontinently to pieces. The couch on which I reclined afforded me conclusive information as to its usual occupant, Mr. "Slasher." He must have been exceedingly filthy and abnormally pachydermatous. Otherwise, he could never, in the first instance, have harboured, and, in the second, could never have survived the attacks, of the enormous number of vermin that swarmed about his resting- place. I wished him no harm, however; I only regretted that I had replaced him, and that the uncomfortable mattress was not as usual graced by his manly form. But I was prevented from indulging in speculations as to his habits and whereabouts by the entrance of a couple of gentlemen who had apparently disagreed somewhat below stairs, and who continued their very forcible arguments for some time after their entrance into the dormitory. One of them exhibited  a passionate yearning to "chuck" his companion "out o' winder," while the latter expressed very decided doubts as to his ability to do it. Their colloquy, which was rapidly becoming painfully interesting to the other occupants of the room, was, however, interrupted by the advent of an Irish gentleman, who told them plainly that "if they didn't shut up their (adjective) row, he'd be (expletive) if he didn't break every (adjective) bone in their (expletive) bodies." He was an old man, this, but tall and raw-boned enough to convey a fairly strong impression that he could and would be as good as his word. So, after a few muttered threats and recriminations, the quarrelsome gentlemen desisted; and, for a while, there was comparative tranquillity. The last corner informed us that he had just left Hyde Park, where a large number of his friends and acquaintances were "dossing out," and the opinion was generally expressed that, if it were not for the "coppers," it was much pleasanter to sleep out of doors than in-at all events in the summer. There were two windows in the room, which the suffocating and mephitic atmosphere compelled us to keep open, and a by no means pleasant draught came from them, as a result of which I had a stiff neck next day. It often happens in these lodging-houses that one has to endure an immensity of discomfort for the sake of a little fresh air. I remember on one occasion sleeping in a small close room with, I think, nine beds in it, where the only pretence at ventilation consisted of a single skylight in the sloping ceiling. Although it was a miserably wet night and the rain was pouring in torrents, it was absolutely imperative that this aperture should be kept open; so the beds were moved about so that there was none under the skylight, and the water was allowed to enter together with the air. The sloppy puddle on the floor was, of course, a nuisance; but the necessity for ventilation of some sort was so urgent that the former was endured patiently, because it was only by those means that we could obtain the latter. So at Wilson's. The draught that came from the windows was unpleasant enough, but to close them would have been almost suffocation, and I was the less inclined to do so as the bed next to me was occupied by a gentleman who came up just as the clock finished striking the midnight hour, and who had evidently been imbibing the noxious and nauseous stuff which, in the neighbourhood of Parker Street, is by courtesy termed ale. He had thrown himself upon his pallet with his clothes on, and there he lay, snoring like a pig, and smelling like a litter.
   
But even if the sounds within had not been so decidedly unpleasant, those without were sufficient to prevent any one from sleeping. From the streets came the noise of quarrelling and fighting, which continued unintermittently until, about three o'clock in the morning, it occurred to me that I had had sufficient experience of Wilson's lodging-house; and that it would be advisable to transport as much of my body as had not been devoured by the "chamois" into the less impure and fcotid atmosphere outside. Many of the "dossers in the rooms above and below were rising to commence their day's work in Covent Garden Market, and I therefore attracted no notice by leaving thus early. I was not loth to hear the last creak of my bedstead as I rolled off it, the last snort of my drunken neighbour as I descended the rickety and winding staircase; still less was I averse to inhaling the last whiff of the peculiar atmosphere of Wilson's as I walked hurriedly through the low doorway I had entered four or five hours before.

    Through Drury Lane, where two "nymphs of the pavement" were, thanks to the kindness of a cabdriver, indulging in chaste repose in a hansom; along the almost deserted Strand; and homewards to the ever welcome bath and change of garments, I walked by no means leisurely. I bought a cup of coffee at a stall on the road, and I verily believe that I enjoyed that drink better than any I have ever quaffed. Not that it was by any means genuine Mocha - probably it was an infusion of home-grown horse-beans. But it served to remove from my throat the last lingering traces of the stench and vapour I had been compelled to inhale during one of the most unpleasant nights I can ever remember to have spent.

[Hiram Abiff]

CHAPTER VI.

THE BOROUGH - "PHILLIPS'."

IT would be grossly unfair, and it would rather prejudice my case than otherwise, were I, in describing the deplorable condition of the common lodging- houses, to show only one side of the medal. It is my business to depict the best as well as the worst, and I cannot better preface the present chapter than by admitting that the house which forms the subject of it was one of the most tolerable I have visited. In some respects there was little to complain of and, in all, it was far less unpleasant than some of the places in which it has fallen to my lot to pass the night. I do not mean it to be inferred from this that it was comfortable, or even that it was a fit place for human beings to be housed in. But there was less of dirt and impurity there than in the majority of common lodging-houses; and if the reader peruses a description of it which certainly presents all that is to be said in its favour; keeping in mind the statement that it is one of the best of common lodging-houses, he will possibly be able to form something like an adequate estimate of the condition of the worst.

    Formerly, the Borough was one of the nastiest districts in the Metropolis, and Mint Street one of the nastiest streets in the Borough. Now, however, "we have changed all that." The Borough is comparatively respectable, notwithstanding the existence of a very large number of common lodging-houses, and a considerable portion of Mint Street has been altogether demolished. What still remains is, by night, dark and unwholesome-looking enough, in all conscience. A little way down on the right-hand side stands a house over the window of which is a board announcing that there you may have "good beds at fourpence a night." I had often been allured by a similar announcement; and it was with no very sanguine feeling as to the fulfilment of the promise, that one sultry evening in the early summer I knocked at the door and inquired if I could be accommodated with a lodgment for the night. I am uncertain as to the position of the gentleman who vouchsafed an affirmative reply. He might have been the "deputy," but my impression is that he was the actual proprietor.

    "Will you go to bed now?" he asked.
    "No, thanks, not just yet."
    "Very well then, there's the kitchen straight afore you," and he retired into his own sanctum.
   
He was an elderly man, tall and lank, with a decidedly better appearance than that presented by the majority of his confreres; and he was the first and only lodging-house keeper I have ever seen with a clean shirt, and a face and neck that bespoke some acquaintance with the renovative powers of soap. Following his direction, I crossed a square yard "straight afore me," and entered the kitchen, in which, of course, the inevitable coke fire was roaring loudly and blazing brightly. Strange to say, it was clean. Mind, I do not mean this statement to be accepted without a reservation. It should be taken with a due regard to the spirit of the Italian proverb, "Dove non sono i cani la volpe è re" - "Where there are no dogs the fox is a king." Similarly, as there is not probably in any common lodging-house in London a "kitchen" that could be termed absolutely "clean," that adjective may - with, of course, a necessary qualification - be applied to the kitchen at Phillips'. The walls and ceiling were in a very much better state of preservation than in any other "doss-'ouse" I have visited. The cups, saucers, and plates were, without any reservation this time, clean; and the tables showed indications of being scrubbed now and again. In fact, honourable mention must be accorded to the proprietor, so far as his "kitchen" was concerned. It was cosy, fairly well ventilated, comparatively free from dirt; and if all "kip-'ouse" kitchens were as well looked to, the lot of the ordinary "dosser" would be far better and more bearable.

    But the company! Poor wretches! I never saw so much listless misery anywhere as in that kitchen. Not one man had a word to say to his neighbour. One was mending his coat, and silence on his part was therefore comprehensible; for the difficulty of the operation would assuredly have daunted a less bold spirit, the garment being completely in tatters.

    Another had leaned his head upon his hands, his elbows resting on his knees, and was staring into the glowing fire before him. Others were stretched at full length on the benches, looking with dull, leaden, expressionless eyes at the ceiling. Not a word was uttered. Those who were finishing their suppers, ate with voracity; but it was the voracity of hunger, not of enjoyment. The silence was as wonderful as it was depressing. When the denizen of a lodging-house doesn't swear it is remarkable, but when he is altogether silent it is nothing short of marvellous. On this occasion the prevalent taciturnity was the more noteworthy as there was, one would have thought, every incentive to conversation. A comparatively clean room, and a few men in it, are usually the only absolute essentials for a palaver; yet here were both, and silence reigned supreme. It could not have been that poverty was the sole cause of their quietude, for I have often seen poorer men lively enough-perhaps, if anything, a trifle too lively. I could not satisfy myself as to the reason of their silence, unless it was that the poor folk whom I had seen among far more squalid surroundings had been obliged to talk in order to forget their miseries, and that these men being less badly situated as regards wholesome atmosphere and cleanly furniture, were deprived of that incentive to conversation which is furnished by the very destitution of many of their comrades. But this hypothesis appears too strained to be altogether tenable; and I will therefore content myself with recording the fact that, during the half-hour I was in the "kitchen," a  dozen men sat stolid, dull, and miserable; and that, the whole time, not a single word, good, bad, or indifferent, was uttered by any one present.

    So I tired of it, and I went into the yard. It was fairly large, and unevenly paved, with a small and unpleasantly smelling lavatory at one side, and other necessary erections round. There were about half a dozen ill-clad and miserable-looking men there, but they were a little more cheerful than those within doors, and were carrying on an animated conversation, the subject of which, as far as I could glean, was the science of navigation, illustrated, of course, by oaths and expletives unmentionable to ears polite. There was a more attractive spectacle for me, however, in the gambols of some children, belonging, I conjectured, to the lodging-house keeper. These youngsters had been undressed and put to bed, but perversely declined to stop there, and were causing their buxom and good-tempered mother an infinity of trouble. "Them little toads!" she ejaculated as, fairly out of breath, she bundled them for the sixth or seventh time back into their cribs. But it was useless. Out they bounced again in a few minutes-only, of course, to be recaptured as they ran, stark-naked, across the narrow passage between the sitting-room and bedroom that comprised the private apartments of their parents. At last, they were persuaded to remain quietly in bed; but for a long time the sweetest sound that can be heard, the merry ripple of a childish laugh, echoed on my ears as I sat smoking on the side of the coal-hole. The mirth and merriment of those two babies constitute the pleasantest of all my doss-'ouse memories; and even the discomfort of my subsequent experience of Phillips' was compensated for by the pleasure I derived from listening to the merry ringing laughter of those provoking little rascals.

    It was a beautiful starlit night, and I sat smoking the calumet of peace till long after the bells had chimed the twelve magic strokes that announce the witching hour of night, when pubs do close and dossers go to roost; sat there, in fact, until I almost fell asleep with my head lying on my chest, as the drunken bargee on the ground in front of me had done. The kitchen had been left to the undisputed possession of the blackbeetles, and the only people not yet a bed were the one or two remaining in the yard. So I roused myself, yawned, and seeking the gentleman who had given me admittance, requested to be shown the quarters in which I was to pass the night.

    I have now fairly enumerated those particulars which constitute the superiority of Phillips' over the large majority of common lodging-houses; and here commendation must cease.

    The comparative cleanliness of the kitchen had inspired the hope that I should find the bedroom similarly comfortable - a hope destined to be rudely shattered. My conductor showed me to a room at the end of the passage on the ground-floor, and bidding me good-night, told me I was to occupy "that end 'un in the corner." The room was very low and ill-ventilated, the only means of admitting light and air being a small window at one end and a skylight.

Yet there were eight beds in it: and it would have been overcrowded had there been five. On the wall, however, was posted the notice, signed by the inspector, informing all whom it might concern that eight was the number of people who were permitted by law to sleep there; so there was nothing to do but lie down and make the best of it.

    As a matter of course the sheets and rugs bore the name "Phillips" in letters three inches long, a precaution which struck me as somewhat unnecessary, for neither "fence" nor pawnbroker would have been likely to receive them unless they were previously disinfected. "That end 'un in the corner," over which was roughly painted the number 60, was a rather dilapidated structure, being all on one side; but I was so tired and sleepy that any couch, almost, would have been welcome. I therefore tumbled into bed, and for perhaps five minutes I was not absolutely uncomfortable. But then I discovered that - to use the words of Tom Hood's famous parody:

    " A monster there dwelt, whom I came to know
    By the name of Cannibal Flea,
    And the brute was possessed with no other thought
    Than to live - and to live on me.

    I was in bed and he was in bed,
    In the district called S.E.,
    When first, in his thirst, so accursed he burst
    Upon me, the Cannibal Flea,
    With a bite that felt as if someone had driven
    A bayonet into me."

    A bayonet! a whole armoury! For an hour I continued the struggle-and then the "chamois" won.

 At about half-past one, all the beds being then full, the deputy entered, and, waving his hat at the smoky little oil-lamp, extinguished the light. It was not, however, too dark to see the insects of one sort and another which were crawling over the beds in all directions. Sleep-even of the most fitful sort, was therefore, to me, out of the question, though the other gentlemen in the room were apparently impervious to the attacks of the little wretches that were driving me half wild. As the night drew on the smell became intolerable. It was increased, as it always is in these places, by the effluvium proceeding from those necessary utensils which of course were in the room, and the contents of which were occasionally knocked over and slopped about the floor. It was horrible; and the only thought I could harbour just then would, if put into words, have read : "Would to heaven that the idiot of an inspector who authorized eight people to be put in this room, could just pass one night here. He would quit Mint Street a sadder and a wiser, or at all events less foolish, man. At last I could endure it no longer. I huddled on my clothes, and staggered rather than walked out into the yard. It looked far more uninviting than on the previous night. The house itself was a very tumbledown building, and in the grey morning light appeared very melancholy. But the atmosphere in the yard resembled the purest ether compared to that in the room I had just quitted; though even there, as in the kitchen, the walls had been recently limewashed, and there was some attempt at cleanliness. The unendurably nasty state of the place arose entirely from the overcrowding and want of ventilation, and as that is condoned - nay, even encouraged - by the law and those who execute it, is it fair to blame the lodging-house keeper for it?

    The yard was not wholly deserted. A gentleman was reclining at full length on the flags, fast asleep. At first I was almost inclined to seize the opportunity and wash him as he lay there. But it might have given him cold - and he might have resented it. So I confined my cleansing operations to my own skin, and laved my burning face in the water-emphatically not aqua pu-a-that was in the stuffy little lavatory. And then I prepared to shake the dust of Phillips' from my feet, and leave "that end un in the corner to the frisky little creatures who made it their happy hunting - ground. But I couldnt get out. The fastening of the door baffled me. There was nothing for it but to rouse the somnolent gentleman in the yard, and beg him to show me some mode of egress. This I did, and unusually civil he was, and, the obstinate door being mastered-it was easy enough, I found, when you knew how to do it-I issued forth into the narrow street, and soon left the Borough, with its weary, leaden-eyed, out-all-night trampers, far behind me.

[Hiram Abiff]

CHAPTER VII.

NO DOSS-MONEY.


No sketch of "doss-'ouse" life - or would it be snore correct to say "existence" - however slight, would be in any sense complete if it failed to include some brief mention of the condition and sufferings of those who, not having the few necessary halfpence, are unable to obtain a shelter of any sort. Their position is deplorable, and the more so because it is to a large extent not susceptible of alteration. Filth and stench may be removed by state intervention and private enterprise, but poverty is not so readily to be displaced. Human beings can be prevented by legislative interference from herding together like swine, but no Act of Parliament will put money into a man's pocket or give him a night's lodging gratis.

    When you enter the "kitchen" of a "doss-'ouse," it would be a mistake to suppose that all the people you meet there are going to spend the night under its roof. Many of them are "reg'lar 'uns," who, in consideration of their constant patronage are permitted to spend the evening, or a portion of it, before the blazing coke fire, for though the deputy will give no  trust, he knows better than to offend a regular lodger. As the evening wears on, however, these poor wretches become restless and moody. They pace the floor with their hands in their otherwise empty pockets, glancing towards the door at each fresh arrival to see if a "pal" has come in from whom it may be possible to borrow the halfpence necessary to complete their doss-money. At last, their final hope being gone, they shuffle out into the streets and prepare to spend the night with only the sky for a canopy.

    The parks, of course, are the most favoured resort of the penniless dosser. No more realistic stage-picture was ever produced than "The Slips, Regent's Park," in "The Lights o' London." The scenes and characters there depicted are to be seen any night in all their stern reality; and it is pleasant to be able to write that not the least accurately limned of the dramatis persornae is the bluff, good-hearted "copper." The gentlemen in blue are often reproached and upbraided, but there is more real kindliness of heart and good-nature under the policeman's jacket than most people imagine. To the "dossers" who are obliged to sleep out they are as forbearing as their duty will permit, and many a little kindness have I seen Robert do to some poor starveling wretch, who, probably, would never dream of acknowledging or requiting it in any way, and would heartily curse the whole force five minutes afterwards. One exception, however, must be made. It is said that the policeman on duty at Trafalgar Square has recently adopted the practise of sousing the seats there with water "to keep them casuals off." Of course this is done in obedience to orders, but it seems, nevertheless, a piece of wanton cruelty to which there is good reason to object; and the same condemnation will apply to the policy of eviction recently decided upon with regard to those who make the seats along the Thames Embankment their resting-place.

    Thrawl Street, Flower and Dean Street, Dorset Street, Parker Street, and similar thoroughfares, are, night after night, thronged with "dossers" who have no money for a night's shelter. They lie on the kerbstone, in the gutters, on heaps of rubbish, anywhere; or walk up and down with their hands in their pockets, and their dull, sleepy eyes, almost closed. Some of them, of course, are wastrels on whom it would be idle to lavish any pity; but a considerable number are men and women who are, or have been, honest labouring folk, whom the depression of trade, which has for so many years blighted the happiness of the industrial population, has ruined. Some of the men have been walking about seeking for work since six o'clock in the morning, or even earlier. They have hung about the docks or the markets the whole day, and very possibly have not earned even a penny. The women and children are even more to be pitied, the latter especially so. I am acquainted with the case of a woman who tries to earn a living by hawking clothes-pegs, sometimes in London, and sometimes in the country. She tramps about with three little children, and during the whole of the winter of 1885-86 not one of them slept under a roof. Nor is this an exceptional or isolated instance. Many a stunted, sickly child, who, after lingering out a wretched, unwholesome existence, a burden to itself and its protectors, "goes into a decline," and succumbs at last to disease, can trace the inception of its malady to the nights it has spent crouched in a doorway, or huddled in a heap upon the pavement. The churches and churchyards, too, or such of them as afford any accommodation, have always their share of hungry, ragged men and women, hanging on to the railings, or crouching down by the walls. Christ Church, Spitalfields, and St. George's Church, Borough, are examples. Every night there are dozens of homeless creatures, male and female, half-leaning, half-lying on the low rail-topped wall that surrounds each building. Outside Christ Church, in particular, the scene is most painful, for the women there are all of the Flower and Dean Street type - that is to say, of the lowest type conceivable. One exception, indeed, I have seen - a woman of middle age crouching against the wall, half-crying. She said she had been out for the last three nights, and, as far as she could see, would be out for many more. She had eaten nothing all that day, for she was a needlewoman, and work was slack, "and," she added, as a couple of wretched girls came flaunting by, singing an obscene chorus, "I'd sooner starve twice over than get my living like them."

   London Bridge, too, is a favourite haunt of the "dosser." The broad stone benches in the recesses on either side are always fully occupied, some of the folk sitting, some reclining at full length. There are  a couple of coffee-stalls at the Borough end of the Bridge, and these do good business, for there is nothing so comforting as a cup of coffee on a cool night when one misses the bedclothes. I have a kindness for coffee-stall keepers. Taking them as a rule, they are decent, well-behaved, civil people, and not devoid of pity for the unfortunate. Many a time will they cut the halfpenny slice of bread and butter larger and spread it more thickly because they see the wistful look of chronic hunger in the longing eyes of some unkempt, haggard customer.

    But there are sadder sights to be seen among these homeless ones than men resting on a bridge or against a wall. Often have I met a man and his wife, each with a sleeping child in their arms, walking aimlessly about the streets, as they have walked through all the weary hours of the long, silent night. Gaunt, weak, hollow-eyed, they seldom speak to one another, but walk on in the same mechanical manner. "Kip-'ouses" are bad, with their close, foul rooms, and vermin-covered beds; but to these poor wretches anything would be better than tramping the hard flags, whose resonant echoes mock their heavy footfalls. Yet it is no uncommon sight this, and the only certain thing in addition to the misery and want that are so obvious appears to be that it is to a large extent irremediable.
   
But bad as all this is in spring and summer, it is ten thousand times worse when the autumn rains and the winter fogs supervene; when the sleet and snow pour pitilessly down, sowing the seeds of consumption and death alike in strong men and feeble women and children. There could be no greater charity than the invention of some means, if any can be devised, to relieve the sufferings and alleviate the wants of those who are compelled to tramp the streets the livelong night because they have "no doss-money."

[Hiram Abiff]

CHAPTER VIII.

THE "LITTLE WONDER."


"FLOWRYDEAN STREET" is the name generally given by its habitués to Flower and Dean Street, Spitalfields; but just as a rose by any name would smell as sweet, so Flower and Dean Street, call it what you will, would smell as unwholesome, look as uninviting, and resound with discord as unholy. It is one of the worst of East-end slums, and its denizens are among the worst of East-end roughs and drabs. There are no words in which to paint the depth of degradation, the intensity of misery, which are revealed by a night walk up this most deplorably poverty-stricken byway. When I went thither for the first time, equipped of course in my usual "kipping" costume, I almost hesitated to seek the hospitality afforded by the common lodging-houses which line each side of the street. At the first hostelry in which I sought a refuge the deputy, a big bull-necked man with a red face, and a handkerchief that in coster parlance would be described as "rorty," told me that all the beds were let, and I was constrained to go further, and, as the sequel will show, to fare, probably, worse. The next house at which I stopped was a low, mean-looking edifice, the dirty canvas screens in the still dirtier windows bearing the inscription-

THE ORIGINAL
Lodgings for
Single Men 4d.
Good Double    

LITTLE WONDER
Lodgings for
Single Women 4 d.
Beds 8d. per night.

A little wonder it was - a little wonder for dirt, for evil sin ells, for the poverty and brutality of the lodgers, for the gross profanity and obscenity of their language, for the sights and sounds to be seen and heard on all sides. Would to Heaven it were "the original and only" little wonder; but, alas there are scores of "doss-'ouses" as bad, though it would be well-nigh impossible for any to be worse.

    The door of the Little Wonder leads straight into the kitchen, in which, when I entered, an enormous coke fire was burning with such fierce intensity that, as a gentleman present remarked, "the temperaycher was more like 'ell than anythin' else." There was no deputy, and my fourpence was taken by a blear-eyed old woman who might have been any age above seventy, and who was indiscriminately addressed as "Anna," "old death's 'ead," and "old 'ooman." The pence were dropped into a dirty little canvas bag, and I was bidden to take a seat, and was at liberty to survey my companions. These consisted of men who were more ragged, more dirty, and more disreputable than even the "busy bees of Brick Lane, or the gentlemen who "dossed" at Wilson's. The girls and women were, most of them, street-walkers of the lowest type - and no one save those who have seen and heard them can form any conception of how low that is. All were smoking, swearing, and shouting; and all, especially the women, were about as ill-looking and undesirable specimens of humanity as one could meet in a lifetime. During the evening there were unmistakable indications of the fact that the house was one of ill-fame, and the sights and sounds were such as it would be impossible to describe upon paper. The unhappy women were, by many degrees, worse than the men. Their language was more obscene, their habits were more filthy, and they had abandoned even those primitive restraints of decency which hold sway over savages. Circes, they wallowed in moral filth, and seemed to revel in their degradation.

    It will readily be imagined that in the midst of squalor and misery such as exist in common lodging-houses, quarrels - and indescribably fierce and desperate quarrels - are of frequent occurrence. One such dispute occurred at the "Little Wonder" on the night of my visit, and as it is my business to depict every phase of lodging-house life, I propose to describe it, or, at any rate, as much of it as can with any regard to decency be set down upon paper. It must be understood, however, that this is done, not in order to hold those who took part in it up to ridicule, or to make light of what to them was a very serious business, but simply to show the sort of thing which is of  constant occurrence in these places, and which must be frequent as long as foulness and distress exist, such as cannot fail to feed and nourish the worst and most depraved passions of erring human nature.

    I had been inside but a few moments when the commotion commenced. A man and his wife, who had been quarrelling in the street, entered the room, and continued their altercation there. The man, it appeared, had been away from town all the week, and on his return had received information respecting his wife which appeared to reflect upon her conjugal fidelity. The woman had denied the accusation made against her with sobs and shrieks, and her worse half appeared satisfied with her protestations of innocence. But when they entered the "kitchen" their quarrel turned upon another point. The man wanted to go to bed, said he was tired, had been working hard all the week, and wanted rest. His wife would by no means consent to retire to her couch, "Might she be struck paralyzed dead and blind if she would!" but vented a storm of vehement abuse at her unfortunate spouse. "You've been drinkin' at the Queen's 'Ead and the Princess Alice!" she shrieked. "You've been treatin' yer flash girls, an' you never offered me a drop. An' I won't go to bed. An' you sha'n't go to bed. You thief! You son of a thief! Give me some money, and let me have summat to drink!" "Drink," retorted the husband. "You've 'ad more'n a drop too much already" - a statement which certainly admitted of no contradiction. But it only served to further exasperate the already terribly enraged woman, who poured forth curses and lamentations without number, calling her husband every foul name, and accusing him of every loathsome crime. "You'll make me do you a mischief," he said, biting his lips. "Do me a mischief! Do it, you murderer! You murderin' thief! You villain! You know you're a-murderin' me. I'm pinin' away like my poor baby, and it's all along o' you, you brute!" "Are you comin' to bed?" was the reply, "or I shall drag yer upstairs." "Drag me upstairs! You can't! You daren't lay a finger on me; an' I'll knife yer! I'll swing for you yet, you wretch!" The husband, by dint of a strong effort, maintained his self-control, and started upstairs by himself. But scarcely had he left the room when his spouse commenced another quarrel with a girl who was sitting quietly enough smoking a short clay pipe. The girl was repulsively ugly. She was dressed in a frock that reached little below her knees, and her hideous calling was proclaimed by the traces of dissipation in her face, even if she herself had not ostentatiously declared it. Upon her turned the infuriated termagant, shouting at the top of her shrill voice, "And you, you drab, what did you say about me last week?" "I dunno as I said anythin'," replied the girl, still puffing away at the pipe, but evidently astonished and a little dismayed at the suddenness and violence of the woman's attack upon her. "Yes, you did, you know you did, but I've got it laid up 'ere for you" (pointing to her breast) -  "I've got it laid up 'ere, and some day I'll pay you out. I'll kill you yet!  I'll tear your heart out for you !" " Ah," cried the girl, bursting into tears, which were, however, neither of rage nor grief, but of maudlin inebriety- "ah, but you must be a wicked woman to bear 'mosity against a poor wretch like me as is 'bliged to get 'er livin' on the streets, w'en you've got a man to stick up for yer an' take care on yer." This appeal failed to achieve its purpose; and the woman, whose demoniac rage was, to me at any rate, something awful to contemplate, raved and cursed until the noise brought her husband downstairs. Then it all began de novo. The terrible temper of the woman, who had evidently once been respectable, for there were traces of education even amongst her half-inarticulate execrations, vented itself first in curses, then in tears, now in frantic appeals to the Deity to strike her dead, now in violent assertions that she would take her own life and that of the poor girl, who was half-dazed by the intensity of her antagonist's passion and by her own semi-intoxication. At last a hysterical outburst of sobs ended the painful scene, and the woman followed her husband up to bed - only, however, as we could hear from her shrieks and curses, to recommence the quarrel above stairs. During the whole time the man had been, considering all the circumstances, wonderfully forbearing. The provocation he received was enormous. The fearful abuse, the passionate denunciations, the horrible accusations levelled at him were enough to cause and almost to excuse violence on his part. But though evidently goaded, at times, almost to desperation, he contrived  to restrain himself, and the consequences which, more than once during the progress of the vehement quarrel, I saw reason to fear, were averted.

    Strange to say, while all this disturbance was agitating my mind with apprehensions as to the probability of actual personal violence, the other folks in the "kitchen" manifested but little interest and no concern in the matter. Some of them went on eating their suppers of whelks or "'addicks;" others sat moodily staring at the disputants; but not one of them seemed to care the proverbial two straws whether the man split his wife's head open, or whether the latter executed her threat of "knifing" either or both of the objects of her rage. That they had keenly, if indifferently, watched the squabble, was evidenced by the fact that, as soon as the quarrelsome couple had left the "kitchen," they all gathered together to discuss the merits of the case. The opinion generally prevalent was that the woman only was in fault. It was said that she was always equally passionate and vengeful, that her husband was a decent, hard-working man, and very fond of her, but that she "led 'im a dreadful life," and that he went in positive fear of her. It was believed that both of them had "come down in the world a bit," and that this was largely attributable to the woman's intemperate habits. The wiseacres of the "doss-'ouse" cackled, shook their heads, and uttered sententious scraps of wisdom, much as do their better-to-do brothers and sisters in similar circumstances; and when the subject had lost the charm of novelty, all of them, with the exception of "old death's 'ead" and two folks who were finishing their suppers at the upper end of the room, went out to witness one or other of the fights that were taking place in different parts of the street.

    The couple who were regaling themselves were sufficiently noticeable. The woman - or rather the girl, for she could not have been more than seventeen or eighteen - was ghastly pale and very, very thin. Her dress was torn to tatters, and she looked terribly ill and destitute. But she had a pleasant smile, and though her conversation was always unrefined and generally blasphemous, it was at least good-humoured. Her companion was little older than herself, a thin, pale, and apparently consumptive youth. His eyes presented a most unpleasant spectacle, and evidently caused him acute pain, for he had, he said, "the blight." The girl bathed them, applied a lotion, and bandaged them with the tenderest and most solicitous care. She was evidently very fond of him, and, though she wore no wedding-ring, was as gentle, as careful, and as desirous to alleviate his pain, as the most loving wife could have been. Probably - judging from her appearance, almost certainly - she had never known another life than one of grinding, biting poverty; another home than a foetid, stenchful "kip'ouse;" another protector than the stripling on whom she was lavishing her care, and who was, in his impatience, cursing her heartily for her pains. If so, the more merit hers. There is nothing more pleasant, and at the same time more pitiful, to see, than the kindness of these poor creatures one to another. Their lives are dark enough. It is indeed a blessing if the light of love - even of illicit and unhallowed love - shine in upon them now and then when all else is so very black and gloomy.

    Their supper being finished, they left the room, and went to bed. The blear-eyed old woman who acted as deputy went away for a few minutes to take the money she had received to her employer-who rejoiced, I heard, in the euphonious but not altogether unique name of Smith; and I was thus the only remaining "dosser" in the kitchen. It was an excellent opportunity for taking stock of the place, and I naturally availed myself of it. It was incomparably the very filthiest I had ever seen. The humid walls were dripping with moisture, induced by the intense and overpowering heat. The floor was strewn with odds and ends of all kinds, and enormous cockroaches were crawling over it in every direction, while swarms of flies settled on the scraps of food that lay putrifying on the tables. The stench was horrible, for there was little or no ventilation. The whole place was abominable. It was intolerable to think that such dens were intended to be the habitation of human beings; and worse still to remember that the law, by "regulating" such lodging-houses and allowing these evils to exist under its regulations, should give a sort of back-handed sanction to their continuance.

    On one side of the bare discoloured walls was a portrait of Sir Moses Montefiore, cut from an illustrated paper. The venerable philanthropist had probably never been in worse company. Opposite his counterfeit presentment, however, was another evidence of the fact which is the only pleasant one in connection with my visit to the "Little Wonder," namely, that brutalized as all these people are and must be, their surroundings, their poverty, and the squalor and filth amidst which they live, have not altogether obliterated those traces of kindly and sympathetic feeling for an afflicted companion which constitute the main - perhaps the only - redeeming feature in the character of the ordinary dosser. It was a roughly-printed, black-edged card, headed by an uncouth, ungrammatical rhyme:

        "When death steps in how much we need each other's kindly aid,
        To help the mourning friends that's left to place them in the grave;
        'Tis for this I now appeal to those who round me stand,
        So forward come in trial's hour and lend a helping hand."

    The prose portion set forth that "a friendly meeting will take place at Mr. Lovesey's, The Seven Stars, Brick Lane, Spitalfields, on Saturday, July 3rd, 1886, for the benefit of John Murphy, to help to defray the funeral expenses of his sister, Julis Sullivan, better known as Julis Murphy." Then followed the list of "gentlemen" who had promised to assist in the achievement of this laudable object. Poor Julis Sullivan, when she lived, was probably no better than she should have been. Those to whom the appeal on her brother's behalf was addressed were certainly, in many respects, the reverse of amiable or estimable characters. But kindly and sympathetic hearts beat, thank Heaven! under dirty skins, and I felt right glad to see this evidenced by the ill-printed card of invitation, and heartily hoped that the collection was a good one, and that John Murphy's sister was decently laid to rest.

    But the train of pleasant thought into which the invitation to the "friendly meeting" had led me, was abruptly changed by the entrance of the old woman who acted in lieu of deputy. She was a little more drunk than when she went out, and she smelt horribly of liquor. Her bleared old eyes rolled wildly, and altogether she looked a particularly repulsive and disgusting object. The room, too, was so horribly close and malodorous, that, believing it could not possibly be worse upstairs, I approached the ministering angel of the "Little Wonder," and hinted that I would like to seek repose. With a drunken leer, she commended me to the care of a rather tall and exceedingly dirty gentleman, who, grumbling very much at the nuisance of "'avin' a lot of bloomin' coves as wanted to be shown about like so many babbies," motioned me to follow him.

    The passage was pitch-dark. So were the stairs, and creaky and rickety to boot; and my shins were barked "more'n a bit," as my friend Bluegown would have phrased it, before I reached the top.

    There it was as usual, a low-roofed, ill-ventilated room, crowded with beds, on which drunken men lay snoring and grunting in every conceivable attitude. The horrible stench superadded to the heat and tumult I had experienced downstairs were, for once, too much for me, and I sank down on one of the beds "all in a heap". "Put yer 'ead out o' winder, man, an get some fresh air," said my conductor, the whole surliness of his manner changing as he perceived that I was really ill. I put my head out, but there was no fresh air. After a few minutes I came round again, and was enabled to go to bed. I have described lodging-house beds so often that it is only necessary to say that these were a trifle dirtier, and the vermin a trifle larger and livelier than usual. I thought that I should be able, as I had been so often previously, to lie awake and long for the arrival of morning; but this time I was baffled. I had managed to endure stench and dirt, but not such stench and dirt as these. As long as I could possibly bear it, I lay there; but at last the atmosphere became so positively overpowering that, as I had no desire to see if my companions could "bring round" a person who had fainted, I huddled on my clothes, and having, for one moment, again, "'eld my end out o' winder," groped down the stairs and passed into the streets, not by any means ill-pleased to have seen the last of the "Little Wonder."

[Hiram Abiff]

CHAPTER IX.

RATCLIFF HIGHWAY.

RATCLIFF HIGHWAY conjures up in the mind of a nervous or impressionable person all sorts of disagreeable imaginings. Visions of swarthy Malays and thick-lipped Lascars, of drunken Jack Tars and equally drunken women, flit before his eyes. The majority of good people would avoid a visit to Ratcliff Highway as they would the devil or the tax-collector. I admit that, from all I had heard about it, I rather dreaded a pilgrimage thither, and that the horribly unpleasant fancies I have hinted at above were not altogether absent from my mind. However, when I went there I found that, like the extraction of a tooth, it was more disagreeable in the anticipation than in the reality. Ratcliff Highway is by no means so black as it is painted. It is a dark, unpleasant street enough, and for the diversity and intensity of its smells would rival Cologne itself. The men are drunken, and the women simply horrible; but I would rather walk down Ratcliff Highway twenty times, in ordinary attire, than down Flower and Dean Street  twice. There is, of course, an amount of rough horse-play; but I never saw anything approaching to actual violence. I received the first intimation that I had actually reached this noted and somewhat maligned thoroughfare by feeling a shock like a small earthquake. A partially inebriated gentleman, who laboured under the impression, which he expressed with great emphasis, that I was a sanguinary Fenian, had pushed up against me with all his force. As I have an insuperable objection to being under an obligation to any one, I returned the push with all the interest I could, and somehow or other-it is not for me to explain how-my assailant found himself in the gutter, whence he immediately sprang, averring that I was a "jolly old cock," and offering to "stand a pot." Declining the proffered hospitality, I continued my peregrinations, seeing, for some considerable time, nothing more terrible than one or two fights between men and women. It must be admitted that the ladies who frequent Ratcliff Highway are deserving of the very worst that can be said about them. A short study of their idiosyncrasies is entertaining, but hardly edifying. Step into a public-house and you will see them, half a dozen of them perhaps, executing an abominable sort of can-can, accompanying it with the most indecent posturing, and hiccoughing out snatches of the most revolting doggrel; while the landlady sits behind the counter shaking her fat sides with laughter. No effort is made to restrain their ardent spirits, or to induce them to confine their mirth within the bounds of decency. It is but fair to  add that, even if made, such efforts would in all probability be unsuccessful.

    I had had enough of the Highway, and was seeking a resting-place for the night, when my progress was accelerated by an incident which might possibly have terminated unpleasantly for me. As I was passing a corner at which some half-dozen men were standing, one of them threw a particularly frowsy and evil-smelling cap. It struck me in the face, and as it was falling to the ground I caught it and pretended to throw it back. I then walked leisurely on, chuckling to myself as I watched them groping in the dark for the cap which I still carried in my hand. They found out their mistake, however, rather too quickly, and the whole lot came running after me, vowing vengeance and threatening all kinds of unpleasant consequences. I waited till the leader was very close to me, and then, flinging the cap with all my force full in his face, I took to my heels. Not a moment too soon, either, for they continued the pursuit, and had they overtaken me, I might possibly have been unpleasantly mauled. As it was, however, I darted into an open doorway, and, pushing a little inner swing-door, found myself in the kitchen of "King David's Chambers."
   
There must have been some mistake. " Behold, I dwell in a house of cedar," said the Psalmist King; and he is also responsible for the assertion that "all men are liars." Perhaps the truth of the aphorism may account for the singular inappositeness of the title given to the "doss-'ouse."

   King David's Chambers are reminiscent rather of loimopyra than Lebanon. The exterior presents a somewhat imposing appearance, and awakes expectations of comfort and cosiness which the reality by no means justifies. In the passage are painted, in conspicuous characters, two notices, one intimating that "no females are admitted," and the other requesting "gentlemen" not to stand about the doorway. The former, having regard to the character of the Ratcliff Highway damsels, is welcome and reassuring; the latter, owing to the scarcity of "gentlemen" in that salubrious district, is entirely unnecessary.

    The kitchen is by no means so large as one would imagine from the appearance of the building viewed from the street, but there is sufficient dirt there to allow of its being distributed over a much larger surface, and then appearing exceedingly unwholesome. The company at the time of my arrival was not very numerous, the majority of the lodgers having retired to rest. One of the most important personages present was a gentleman rejoicing in the name of Barrett, to which his comrades facetiously prefixed the Christian name of "Wilson," a compliment which I fear the eminent actor would hardly have appreciated. Another interesting specimen was an inebriated old gentleman who was offering to "harger" on any point, and to "conflute" any opposing "hargermint" that might be adduced. He confined himself, however, to "hargering" with a young man in a maudlin state of intoxication as to the advisability of his "standin' a pot." "You're a fule, Tom," said the venerable sage, "an' the honly advice I kin give yer is to knock a 'ole into that thick 'ead o' yourn, take some o the himpudence out, an' put some common sense an' generosity in." "Yes, but," rejoined the young man, with a stupid stare, and evidently taking the recommendation in a literal sense, "w'ich part of my 'ead should I knock a nole in?" and here he removed a dilapidated hat, and disclosed an exceedingly unkempt and dirty-looking cranium. "W'ich part?" repeated the elderly gentleman, rising unsteadily, and working his arms up and down see-saw fashion- "W'ich part? wy, in the bump of hub-bub-bub-nevlence, to be sure," and then he stalked out of the room, with as much dignity as a man who can hardly support the weight of his own body can maintain. He was followed by the younger votary of Bacchus, and we heard them still "hargerin' the pint" - no pun is intended - with loud voices and many oaths, as they adjourned to the opposite public- house.

    Their exit was the signal for the entrance of a little old man, whose pinched and haggard features were quite sufficient, without the aid of his shrill, piping voice, to tell us that he was hungry. Having enlightened us, however, to this extent, he commenced to prepare his supper. Shade of Soyer! what cookery! Hanging by the side of the chimneypiece was a piece of thick iron wire. During the evening it had been utilized for stirring the fire and beating the cat, and one gentleman had used it for the purpose of cleaning the bowl of a particularly filthyclay pipe. The hungry gentleman simply poked this through two large bloaters, and set them in front of the blazing fire to toast. He was not fastidious. He made no pretence of cleaning them, but as soon as they were well warmed through, he sat down and ate them, gills, bones, heads, and all. I was glad when the last morsel had disappeared down his voracious throat, for they were, to put it mildly, rather high, and the smell of them, no less than the manner of the cookery and the meal, was sickening and disgusting.

    A puffy-faced youth having started to go to bed, the deputy turned to me and remarked, "This cove sleeps next to you; if you like to go to bed now 'e'll show you yourn." The recommendation was delivered too much in the tone of a command to be lightly disregarded, and I followed the fat-cheeked young man upstairs. Never before or since have I seen such a staircase in a common lodging-house. They were absolutely luxurious in their breadth, and the ease and the comfort of the ascent filled me with the most sanguine expectations as to the probable nature of the bedroom I was to occupy.

    I was soon disillusionized. The bedroom - Heaven save the mark ! - was a narrow slip of a place, with a small gas-jet burning at one end. And here let me direct the particular attention of the reader to a fact which is important as exemplifying the wisdom and care exercised by those who are responsible for the inspection of common lodging-houses. The inspector had given his permission, which of course was prominently posted on the wall, to place five beds in the room. It was absolutely impossible to screw in more than four, owing to the size and shape of the apartment, and even with four the heat was overpowering and the stench unbearable. Of course, if he could, the proprietor would have put five people to sleep in the room. The law, as executed by a sapient inspector, said he might. Fortunately for us it was an utter impossibility, but what can be said of the common sense, not to say the humanity, of the man who authorized a lodging-house keeper to place in a room more beds than, with any amount of planning and contriving, could be squeezed within its four walls.

    The apartment, however, was cleaner than the ordinary "doss-'ouse" bedroom. The walls had been recently papered, and my visit was, happily for me, paid on "clean sheet-day." But nothing could atone for the absolute brutality - there is no other word for it - of placing four men to sleep in a room so small. The stench was unendurable, and things were not rendered more pleasant by the fact that we were lying just above the kitchen fireplace; and that the intolerable heat made the entomological specimens that infested the room more lively than they would have been in a cooler atmosphere. I had the monopoly of the one window which was just by my bed, and I threw down the sash as far as it would go; but as the only things to be seen outside were brick walls and tiled roofs, and there was not a breath of air stirring, I failed to derive much advantage from the proximity of the casement.

    My puffy-faced friend, although he had lived in common lodging-houses for years, and had slept in the bed he then occupied for six months, did not seem to be able to find words in which to express his abhorrence of the disgusting smell that pervaded the room. He was not a bad fellow, however, and as some one had to curse the stench, perhaps it was better that he should do it than I. There were seventy beds, he told me, in the house, which he declared, with many an oath, was "a sight better than most kips, though none on 'em ain't too bloomin' grand." And then with one final volley of oaths, all in reference to the horribly malodorous state of the room, he turned over on his side, and the stertorous snorts that issued from his corner of the room soon told me that "Nature's soft nurse" had "weighed his eyelids down, and steeped his senses in forgetfulness."

    There was a large room next door to that in which I was lying, in which some ten or a dozen men were located. These gentlemen, who were all more or less under the influence of liquor, were disposed to be quarrelsome, and the noise of their altercations would have been sufficient, even without the persecution I suffered from the vermin, to preclude me from snatching the proverbial "forty winks." I lay there, tossing from side to side, feeling, to say the truth, much as Will Waddle did in the bed "immediately over the oven." About one o'clock the deputy came in to turn off the gas. "W'y, sonny," he said, "you does seem wakeful." As soon as I heard a neighbouring church clock strike two I rose, dressed myself, and slipped quietly out. It was the first time I had eve slept in the apartments of an Oriental potentate ; and as I left King David's Chambers I mentally determined that, if they all resembled those, it should most certainly be the last.

[Hiram Abiff]

CHAPTER X.

OUT AND ABOUT.

So many of the common lodging-houses are merely reproductions of one another, having almost every feature in common, and only differing in the quantity of dirt and the variety of smells, that to describe at any length more of the establishments that adorn the lower thoroughfares of the East End, would be merely to recapitulate a great portion of what has already been written on this subject. The remaining accounts of some of the places in which it has been my privilege to be a guest, will be as brief as even the reader can desire. It must be understood, however, that neither in the following nor the foregoing descriptions has it been found possible to depict with any degree of adequacy either the condition of the accommodation, or the sights and sounds to be heard in the "doss-'ouses." There is much that cannot, from its very nature, be set down on paper, and I am bound to confess that to present to the reader a description of these dens, conveying all the details which attract the notice of an inquirer undertaking a pilgrimage such as mine, would completely baffle me.

     Here follow, however, depictions of some of the common lodging-houses, but even when added to the more detailed accounts which have preceded this chapter, they must not be held to convey an adequate impression, either of the number of such places which have been visited, on the one hand, or of their condition and that of their denizens on the other.

    It was on a particularly wet and unpleasant night that I visited SMITH'S CHAMBERS, the Smith's Chambers par excellence; for, though there are many common lodging-houses owned by gentlemen named Smith, the one to which I refer has more than a local celebrity. It is situated at the corner of Brick Lane and Flower and Dean Street, the entrance being in the latter delightful thoroughfare. A dirty and unhealthy looking boy took my fourpence, and told me the number of my bed, which was, if I remember rightly, forty-eight. I cannot say that I either looked or felt particularly happy that night. The rain had soaked my ragged clothes, and the mud had penetrated my broken boots, I was, to use the expression of the fascinating Mantalini, a "dem'd, damp, moist, unpleasant body." The huge fire, however, soon altered the condition of my clothes, and I sat before it steaming for some considerable time, during which I had leisure to make the acquaintance of my companions. There were two kitchens, and in the one in which I first took my seat the more respectable portion of the company was congregated. An old woman was making up artificial flowers with coloured paper, and I was saddened when I thought how many weary miles she would have to  tramp next day before she would obtain the money to pay for her "kip;" and that, too, at a time of life when she should have been able to abandon work and obtain the ease and quiet which in thought one associates with grey hairs. An old man was reading the Bible (it was Sunday night), and the fact particularly attracted my attention as I have never, before or since, seen the holy Book in a common lodging-house. Near him sat a thin, pale woman, nursing in her arms one of those doss-'ouse babies that are typified by the words of the prophet, "like corn blasted before it is grown up." The child was very ill, and the suffocating atmosphere seemed to choke it as it lay there, its fingers feebly clutching at its mother's wasted breast. Yet what could be done? To take it to the door, where the rain was pouring .down pitilessly, and the fierce night wind was blowing bitterly, would have been even more cruel than to allow it to stay gasping for breath in that close and heated room. But to watch people who are so palpably miserable, and who do not seem to have even that levity which enables them to bear their sorrows without a very great effort, is so unpleasant a task, that I was glad to relinquish my seat and step into the other kitchen, filthy and unpleasant though it was. The individuals who were seated there were about the most disreputable that even Flower and Dean Street could produce. To report their conversation would be to disgust the reader, and to annoy myself by an unpleasant reminiscence. Suffice it to say that the noise and discord were so great, the blasphemy and profanity so abhorrent, and the smells so evil and nauseating, that, case-hardened as I was, I was glad to quit the room and go upstairs to bed. About the bedroom the less said the better. It was, as such rooms usually are, shamefully overcrowded, very ill-ventilated, and, as a consequence, foul-smelling and unhealthy. I was heartily rejoiced when morning came and I was free to depart - not soon, I hope, to encounter such squalor and filth as I had seen during the night I spent at Smith's Chambers.

    Hie we now further eastward until we reach St. George's Street, near Ratcliff Highway, where we will rest for the night at JULIER'S CHAMBERS. I don't know whether or not Julier's be a sort of phonetic spelling of Julia's, but as the buxom and not ill-favoured proprietress was sitting outside, it struck me as not improbable that such might be the case. The first thing that arrests one's attention on entering the narrow passage is the notice conspicuously posted on the wall, "No credit given at this establishment;" but the painter, apparently under the not unjustifiable impression that such a legend was superfluous, had partially blurred it out while it was still wet. However, I acted on the spirit of the intimation, and, having paid my fourpence, was shown down into the kitchen, which was underground. It was unutterably dirty, crowded by men who were by no means sober, and smelling abominably. The language that distinguished the conversation was, to use the expression employed by advertising tea-dealers, "of immense strength and very full-flavoured." It appeared principally to relate to a gentleman who was known to his comrades as "Shivery Dick," and whose countenance was, to me, wonderfully reminiscent of the effects of my first pipe. He was pale and unhappy-looking, and very unsteady on his legs. He had apparently offended the company, for when I entered they were "going at him hammer and tongs." Poor Mr. Shivery Dick, who was in a maudlin state of intoxication, appeared neither able nor willing to give his friends the satisfaction they desired. I did not wait to see the termination of the dispute; for though at the time of my visit I was tolerably inured to evil smells, the atmosphere was such as to make me anxious to seek "fresh fields and pastures new," and I retreated up the ladder staircase and went to bed.

    I had a glimpse of the usual dirty, overcrowded dormitory, but as I expressed my desire to be called at three o'clock next morning, I was ushered into a little room on the ground floor near the door. This apartment had quite a luxurious appearance. It was pannelled, and lighted by a small skylight, a window, and a gas-jet that was burning over the door, but which, as soon as I had had time to get into bed, was extinguished from the outside. My slumbers ought to have been peaceful, for they were watched over by no less a personage than the late Pope, a painted effigy of whom was suspended over the bed. But the protecting influence of the venerable pontiff was feeble and inefficacious when opposed to the persistent efforts of the insects. Two hours of restless tossing and tumbling, and then the clock struck three, and a dirty gentleman with a bandage over his eyes, who acted as night-porter, came and shook me by the shoulder, bidding me tumble up. Tumble up I did, nothing loth, and out into the fresh air I. went, soon leaving Julier's behind me. The best thing that can be said of this house is that it is "not so bad as those that are worse." It is a horrible place for human beings to live in, but it is incomparably better than the squalid dens which line such slums as Parker Street, Widegate Alley, or Flower and Dean Street.

    To write about "doss-'ouses" without mentioning Whitechapel, would be like the proverbial representation of Hamlet with the melancholy Dane left out. So ere we say good-bye to our unsavoury subject, let us look in, if only for a little while, at the WHITECHAPEL CHAMBERS, Old Montague Street. The doorway is lighted up brilliantly, and a small passage only separates the street from the kitchen, which when I visited it had been recently painted. The room was not so filthy as that at the "Little Wonder," nor was it so clean as that at Phillips'. It was about as comfortable as a pig-sty which belonged to a very neglectful farmer might he, and the gaudy colours in which the wall was painted served rather to emphasize than to conceal the prevailing untidiness. The deputy or proprietor - for I am not quite clear as to which was his rightful position-was as dirty as any of his guests, but the filthiness of the night-porter entirely eclipsed his master's. He was a very unsavoury-looking object, this night-porter-a short, spare man, with a "cheese-cutter" cap, and an abnormally dirty blue neckerchief, ornamenting a neck which Calcraft would have yearned to try his skill upon. After a brief survey of the room, I lounged out to the front door, when I suddenly received a slap on the back that drove all the breath out of my body. The gentleman who thus forcibly accosted me was drunk-very drunk, and between the hiccoughs which punctuated his speech he said: "I've got summat as'll soot you, guv'nor - some lettuces such as you never seed in all yer born days. I'll let you 'ave 'em at six a penny. They're worth a 'apenny apiece, but I must get my kip-money, so I'll let yer 'ave 'em wery cheap." I consented to become a purchaser, and he went into the house, speedily reappearing with six "lettuces" under his arm. These he pushed into my hands, snatching the penny I offered in exchange; but then he apparently thought better of the matter, for he pulled two of the vegetables away from me, and marched coolly into the house with them, saying, "Them's as many as you'll eat. Go and get them down your neck with a drop o' winegar, and you'll say it's the best grub you've ever et." By and by he returned, and began to enlighten me as to his past history and future prospects, the former being bad, and the latter worse. He seemed much annoyed at my not forthwith starting to masticate the greenmeat I had purchased; but I need hardly say that the idea of eating in a doss-'ouse "kitchen" was about as remote from my mind as anything could possibly be. He stuck to me like a leech for some time, but at length remarked that "he'd go to the pub and try to pross for a bloomin' pint." While he was [-106-] absent on this laudable errand, I seized the opportunity and retired to rest-I beg pardon, I mean to bed. It is unnecessary for me to weary the reader with a description of the bedroom, for any of the doss-'ouse dormitories already depicted would accord in all material features with that at Whitechapel Chambers. It was dirty, noisome, and vermin-haunted. The "dossers" sleeping there were also distinguished by the uncleanliness of their bodies, the evil odour of their breath, and the nastiness of their conversation. When I have said this I have said all that needs to be told, and need record no more than that I rose as early as was possible, and hastened by every means in my power the moment when I was at liberty to divest myself of my "kipping" costume, and resume the customary habiliments of a civilized human being.

    I might extend these descriptions ad infinitum. I might tell of semi-rural Leytonstone, and semi-infernal Seven Dials; of Fuller's Rents, Holborn, and of the charming hostelries of Wellclose Square; of Sugar-Loaf Chambers and of Kate Court - but it would only be to prolong a nauseating record of filth, stench, and abomination, of evil habits and disgusting surroundings, of misery and degradation unspeakable, and of legal unwholesomeness and state-regulated horrors that are a scandal to our age, and a hideous blot upon our vaunted civilization.
    There is one feature, however, in connection with common lodging-houses which is rather amusing than otherwise, and which, in a discursive chapter such as this, I may be permitted to mention. No one who has seen anything of these places can have failed to notice the high-sounding names which, as a rule, they bear. "Osborne Chambers, Wentworth Street," sounds, for example, to the uninitiated, like an address which no one need be ashamed to have engraved upon his visiting-cards. But Wentworth Street is one of the most unpleasant of East-end slums, and "Osborne Chambers" is a miserably dirty doss-'ouse, over an equally miserably dirty little chandler's shop. I have slept in the "Empress Chambers," the "Alexandra Chambers," the "Royal," the "Imperial," the "Commercial," the "Princess's," and places that have been christened after every member of every royal family on earth; and my experience leads me to believe that, the loftier the name the lower the doss-'ouse, and that the proprietors only bestow these mellifluously sounding titles upon the abominable dens they own in order to endeavour to screen the unwholesomeness and filth that distinguish their hostelries, just as in some cheap restaurants they hash up the refuse of the previous day, and calling it ragout or potage a la something unpronounceable, rid themselves of their rubbish, and half poison their customers.

[Hiram Abiff]

CHAPTER XI.

LODGING-HOUSE LAW.

WE owe to a great "parochial" authority the aphorism that "the law is a hass." This dictum might not only be applied, but extended, with regard to common lodging-houses the law which regulates them is not only "a hass," but a brute; it not only does no good, but it produces evil; it is not less a nuisance than a nullity, not more a blessing than a bother.

    It is a moot point for discussion whether the dossers would not be better off if there were no lodging-house law at all. It has been well said that a woman may be charming in maidenhood; but that, once married, she sets her back against her marriage-certificate and defies you. Similarly, the lodging-house keeper might be compelled by his customer to provide cleanlier accommodation, to get rid of the superfluous vermin, and to make his place more desirable generally, if it were not for the fact that there exists a beneficent law which enables him to make his lodging-house the horrible den which in most cases it is, and then point to the notice on the walls and say, "I comply with the Act."

  It is a remarkable fact that there has been no legislation dealing extensively with common lodging-houses for five and thirty years. The Common Lodging.- Houses Act, 1851, and the Amendment Act of the following year, are the only attempts (and these are a great deal worse than useless) that have been made to deal with the lodging-houses of themselves. Incidentally, the Sanitary Act, 1866, makes some salutary provisions in regard to "a house or part of a house which is let in lodgings, or occupied by the members of more than one family," and then this statute proceeds to prescribe that "this Act shall not apply to common lodging-houses within the provisions of the Common Lodging-Houses Act, 1851, or any Act amending the same." The Public Health Act, 1875, which was ostensibly an Act for "consolidating and amending" the Acts previously passed, consolidates, but does not in a single particular amend, the laws that affect the doss-'ouses. So that, after all, practically, if not technically, "the Common Lodging-Houses Act, 1851, and the Acts amending the same," are the only measures that directly apply to the question in hand. While the artizan and the labourer are looked after by the vigilant eye of the law, the "dosser" has been left severely alone, Some people may say that this is because the artizan and the labourer have a vote, and the dosser has none. To endorse this assertion would be, in effect, to bring a charge of gross venality against both political parties in the state, and I refrain from doing so. I prefer to look upon it as a coincidence, and a coincidence only,. that care is taken of the folks whom it is the interest of legislators to conciliate, while those who are unable to decide who shall enjoy power and place have been for five and thirty years unconsidered by the powers that be.

    Political teachers have recently enunciated the doctrine that the principle of a measure is to be considered without reference to the details. But some ignorant people, in whose ranks I am not ashamed to include myself, appear to consider that there are cases in which the clauses of a measure result in details which are diametrically opposed to, or, at all events, place material restrictions upon, the principle set forth in the preamble. The Common Lodging-Houses Act is such a measure. Its principle, as stated in the preamble, is to "tend greatly to the comfort and welfare of many of Her Majesty's poorer subjects," by making "provision for the well-ordering of common lodging-houses. Its principle as evolved from its clauses would appear to be to make just enough provision to prevent the inhabitants of .the kip-'ouses from becoming a dangerous nuisance. The law says in effect to the dosser, "Friend, you may be as dirty as you please, or as the lodging-house keeper may please; but don't become dangerous. Wallow in filth, if you like, but don't contaminate your wealthier neighbours. Roll in the dirt until you catch the itch, for no one would be likely to take it from you as you pass in the street; but don't get smallpox or fever, because these may possibly cause an epidemic. Breathe nothing but stench that half chokes you, weakens you, and shortens your life. After all, that doesn't so much matter; for, though we love the poor, you are too poor to be interesting; but (and here the Law turns to the lodging-house keeper) don't let that stench escape into the streets, so that "'respectable people' have to breathe it too." Comfort! Welfare! The Law provides for the comfort and welfare of the "dosser" exactly in the same degree, and, to all appearance, exactly from the same motive, as the slave-owner in some States in America did for his human chattels. It makes them as comfortless and unhappy as can be done with apparent safety or without immediate loss. Occasionally the slaves objected to the application of this principle, and murdered their owner or burned his house. Then the policy was perceived to be rather shortsighted.

    But the details of the Act - what are they? Clause three, which is the first of any importance, states that "This Act shall be executed as follows, to wit:-

    "Within and for all or any part of the Metropolitan Police District by the Commissioners of Police of the Metropolis, or such one of them as is from time to time appointed in that behalf by one of Her Majesty's principal Secretaries of State."

    There are many people who think that if an Act is intended to be inoperative, or at the best to have its letter studiously adhered to, and its spirit studiously ignored, the best way to ensure such an object is to entrust the execution of the measure to "the Dodo of Scotland Yard." From the fact that the notices in the bedrooms, regulating the number of beds to be placed there, bear the printed signature of Colonel R. L. O. Pearson, one is led to conclude that he is "such one of them" (the Commissioners) "as is appointed in that behalf by one of Her Majesty's principal Secretaries of State." If the gallant officer were to assume the guise of a dosser and to penetrate some night at midnight to a kip-'ouse - say, for example, to the Little Wonder - I fancy he would believe, firstly, that the existing law is badly - not to say shamefully - administered; and, secondly, that it wants strengthening. But Scotland Yard has quite enough to do without the lodging-houses. Scotland Yard is incapable. Scotland Yard is played out; and Scotland Yard has no more right to regulate the lodging-houses than it would have had to control the movements of the Evolutionary Squadron when it was blowing itself up and making itself ridiculous out at. Berehaven.

    All the common lodging-houses must be registered, the registers preserved, and a certified copy of them. is to be received as evidence in all courts of justice without the production of the original. A copy of any entry in such a register may be obtained by any person applying at a reasonable time. There is no. particular good or harm in these provisions, except that the keeping of the register facilitates inspection; but, as the inspection itself is a mere farce, the advantages resultant from the register are not at first sight readily discernible.* [*All clauses of the Lodging Houses Act, 1851, or the Amendment Act of 1853 quoted in these pages, are represented by clauses in tile Public Health Act, 1875. I have preferred to quote the Lodging House Acts, firstly, because they refer exclusively to the subject, and secondly, because they are cheap and readily accessible.]

    Inspection ! The act is worded ("for it's English, you know, quite English") so that inspection under its provisions may mean anything or nothing. Most frequently, of course, it means nothing. Says the Act:

    "The keeper of a common lodging-house, or any person having or acting in the care or management thereof, shall at all times when required by any officer of the local authority give him free access to such house or any part thereof."

    Now, if this clause were well administered, it might be of very great importance, but its whole purpose is nullified because for some occult reason the inspection takes place in the daytime! That is to say, that when the rooms are clear and the evil smells of the previous night have to some extent passed away, the inspector goes his rounds. He sees that the rooms are filled with beds, but he does not see the vermin on the clothes and bed-furniture. He knows that so many men will sleep in that room at night, but he does not know - or, at all events, he acts as if he did not know - the class of men they will be. He doesn't reckon for the effect produced on an atmosphere which at best would be impure by the breath of a dozen, twenty, thirty, or even more men who have been drinking the filthy and noxious decoctions which are sold in low beer-houses and drain-shops as ale and spirits. All these are matters that ought to receive careful consideration, for the inspector calculates that the sleepers will have so many cubic feet of air; while, as a matter of fact, they are compelled to be content with so many cubic feet of stench. The expression is not elegant, but it is far more endurable than the state of things it describes. The inspection is a farce, and I have met many dossers who say, outright, that it is a farce because the inspectors are susceptible to bribery, and are in league with the lodging-house keepers, who know when to expect them, and who make things straight before their visits. In all probability there is but small foundation for this; but the certainty that the employés of the Commissioners of Police are corruptible in other matters, renders it at least possible that they are not entirely above suspicion in this.

    The duties of the inspectors are not, however, confined entirely to the regulation of the sleeping accommodation of a lodging-house. In addition to the provisions already enumerated, the Act prescribes (clause 13) that-
    "The keeper of a common lodging-house shall thoroughly cleanse all the rooms, passages, stairs, floors, windows, doors, walls, ceilings, privies, cesspools, and drains thereof to the satisfaction of, and so often as shall be required by, or in accordance with any regulation or by-law of, the local authority; and shall well and sufficiently and to the like satisfaction limewash the walls and ceilings thereof in the first week of each of the months of April and October in every year."

    With regard to the provisions of this clause, it may be observed that, if the surmise of the dossers be correct, and the lodging-house keepers are warned before the inspection takes place, nothing can be more easy than to have the houses in, comparatively speaking, apple-pie order when the inspector comes round. But if, on the other hand, the inspectors visit these places without previous communication with the keepers, if they visit them as I did, when they are full and when no one is prepared for their arrival, it is absolutely certain - and the statement is made with all possible emphasis - that the provisions of the Act are grossly and shamefully disregarded. The local authority must be easily satisfied indeed, if it regard the dirt and filth I have always seen in a lodging-house as not rendering them unfit for the habitation of human beings. As to the latter portion of the clause, it can only be said that if the lime-washing prescribed therein be done "to the satisfaction of the local authority," that satisfaction must be most easily secured. I have visited lodging-houses within a month after the prescribed date of the limewashing and I should have been loth to believe that the walls and ceilings had been touched at all, not within two months, but within two years. If it be done it is in a perfunctory and negligent manner, but as far as I have been enabled to observe, the provision which directs this cleansing operation is, in ninety-nine cases out of a hundred, absolutely nugatory.

    But when the dirt and the ill smells have done their work, and some poor wretch takes to his bed with a "fever or other infectious or contagious disease," the law intervenes, not, be it remarked, in the interest of the dosser, but in that of the public - or, at all events, of that portion of the public which does not dwell in lodging-houses. The keeper of the house must "give immediate notice to the local authority, or some officer of the local authority; and also to the poor-law medical officer and the poor-law relieving officer of the union or parish in which the lodging-house stands." The local authority (always bear in mind that the "local authority" is, within the metropolitan police district, represented by the Commissioners of Police) may then order the removal of the sufferer to an hospital or infirmary, may have his bedding disinfected or destroyed, and may award compensation to the owner "for the injury or destruction thereof." Observe that there is no compulsion. The authorities "may, if they see fit," do this, that, or t'other; but if, as some good people believe, the authorities in this thrice blessed metropolis are pigheaded and negligent, there is, to say the least, a remote possibility that they may "see fit" to do just nothing at all. And, above all, observe that the clause applies only to the one person who is ill, and makes no provision for the complete disinfection of the house, in which forty or fifty other people may be living, any and all of whom are almost certain to be in that condition of physical weakness in which all human beings most frequently contract disorders.

    "When a keeper of a common lodging-house, or  a person having or acting in the care or management of a common lodging-house, is convicted of a third offence against the recited Act, or this Act, or either of them, the justices before whom the conviction for such third offence takes place may, if they think fit* [* the italics are my own] adjudge that he shall not at any time within five years after the conviction, or within such shorter period after the conviction as the justices may think fit, keep, or have, or act in the care or management of a common lodging- house without the previous license in writing of the local authority, which license the local authority may withold or may grant on such terms or conditions as they think fit."* [* The Common Lodging Houses Act, 1853, s12]

    If "the combined and concentrated wisdom of Bedlam and Colney Hatch" had endeavoured to formulate an Act of Parliament, it is probable that the result would have been just such a clause as that quoted above. Justice Shallow may, if he thinks fit, inflict a penalty which in reality amounts to nothing at all. He may say that the keeper of a lodging- house shall not keep one for five years "or any less period," and the interesting delinquent can, metaphorically speaking, like the sacristan in Barham's famous legend of "Nell Cook"-
            "say no word which can imply a doubt,
        But put his thumb unto his nose and spread his fingers out."

    He can take another house, put his deputy's name over the door; and, by not appearing in the business, be perfectly safe in receiving all the profits. But, not content with this, the sapient gentlemen who drafted this Act have provided that the magistrate's decision can be rendered nugatory by the granting of a license by the local authority, which license the local authority may give or may withhold on such terms and conditions as they think fit. The idea of making the Commissioners of Police practically a court of revision for the decisions of the magistrates in lodging-house cases, is entertaining and original, but hardly creditable to the intelligence of those who conceived it. Of course it is hardly likely that the local authority would attempt to override a justice's decision, but they may do so if they like; and experience shows that the most certain way of rendering an enactment useless, is to establish conflicting authorities charged with the duty of its administration.

    This is a brief abstract of the law relating to common lodging-houses. The whole matter may be summed up by saying that the law is bad, and its administration worse. Such provisions as are not foolishly lax are imperfectly enforced. To expect the dossers themselves to take any steps to put the law in motion would be absurd; firstly, because they do not know what its provisions are; secondly, because they have neither the time nor the money to do it; and, thirdly, because any such attempt on their part would not improbably result in unpleasant consequences. Nor would it be just to blame the lodging-house keepers unduly. There is a law. They observe it- at all events, so far as is absolutely necessary in order to avoid pains and penalties. The proverb tells us that we can't get juice out of a flint. It would be as absurd to expect to find the milk of human kindness in the ordinary lodging-house keeper as in that bailiff who is reported, when there was nothing else on which to levy execution, to have distrained upon the ashes in the grate, saying that he'd come to-morrow for the smoke The jess they do, the greater their profit; an as long as dirt and foul smells are made by law more profitable than cleanliness and proper sanitation, so long will dirt and foul smells be the inseparable characteristics of the lodging-houses.

[Hiram Abiff]

CHAPTER XII.

SHOULD AUGHT BE DONE, AND WHAT?


Possibly more than one of the readers of these pages may say that nothing is contained in them that they did not already know or could not have surmised. "It is not surprising," they will say, "that the condition of common lodging-houses should be uncleanly and malodorous, for the people who tenant them are uncleanly and malodorous, too." Granting this, which I do not grant without some reservation, the question arises which is cause and which effect? Are the lodging-houses unwholesome and filthy because the tenants are so; or are the condition and habits of the dosser to be ascribed to the squalor and insanitary condition of their lodgings - it were a mockery to say their homes? I incline to the latter opinion. I believe that if the "doss-'ouses" were cleaner, the dossers would be cleaner; that if they had light and comfort and fresh air, they would learn to avoid the gin-palace and the beershop; that if there were in their surroundings more regard for the decencies of life, they would also show in their persons and their habits more remembrance of those decencies. You cannot expect people whom custom and the law alike compel to herd and breed like swine to live like human beings. You cannot expect those to whom nearly all necessaries, and absolutely all comforts and refinements, are unknown, to be creditable or even decent members of society. You cannot expect those who only see a brightly lighted room in a public-house to be sober. In a word, if you allow the common lodging-houses to remain what they are, you must expect no improvement in the people who tenant them.

    Yes, but what can you expect for fourpence a night? Not luxury, certainly; but wholesomeness, cleanliness, and perhaps some slight attempt at comfort. Fourpence a night for a man and his wife means four and eightpence a week. If they were a little better off, they would probably take a small furnished room and pay four shillings or four shillings and sixpence a week for it. In many cases we find among the poorer, but not the poorest, class of artizans, a man and wife and one child living in a fairly comfortable furnished room, of which the weekly rent ranges from four shillings to four shillings and sixpence or five shillings a week. Such a man would have to pay for himself, his wife, and child, in a "doss-'ouse," tenpence a night or five and tenpence a week. His evenings he would have to spend in the filthy and foul-smelling kitchen, and during his nights he would have to sleep in a sort of magnified hog-pen-not a room. "Why, then," is the natural question, "does he not take such a furnished room rather than pay more and put up with such infinitely inferior accommodation?" For the simple reason that when people come down to the lodging-houses it is because they are poor - very poor. They have no effects which would be security against possible arrears of rent, their clothes are tattered, and their general appearance is such that few respectable householders would take them in as lodgers. In nine cases out of ten it is difficult to secure the eightpence a night that must be obtained before there is a prospect of a shelter and a bed. So that, practically, it amounts to this. Because folks are only able to pay their rent nightly instead of weekly, they must be compelled to pass their existence amongst surroundings of the most unfortunate description. Their lives must be devoid of comfort and even of hope, their children corrupted and debased, and their whole prospect of doing good in the future blighted and lost. For, in sober truth, as matters stand to-day, this is what taking to lodging-house life means. There are few instances of people who have once taken to it ever returning to a more reputable sort of existence. It is far easier to degrade than to elevate, and the habits acquired-necessarily acquired - even during a short sojourn in common lodging-houses, are not readily to be shaken off.

    "But, after all," some good people will observe, "you won't deny, for your own account implies it, that these people are drunken, profligate, often dishonest, and unworthy the consideration you ask for them." Admitting that for a moment, it may be fairly rejoined that the public interest lies, not in keeping them as they are, nor in suffering them to sink lower, but in endeavouring to raise them, and to improve their condition in order to secure those changes in their habits and manners which such an improved condition would bring with it. But I do not admit that the inhabitants of common lodging- houses are anything like as black as they are painted. They are very drunken, very foul-mouthed, very profligate, very uncleanly; but what can you expect? There are very many working-men who are neither sober, clean, nor scrupulous as to their language; and the majority of those who live in doss-'ouses are not so very much worse than the lower class of working-men. Many of them have themselves been working men, and have been driven to irregular and precarious means of earning a livelihood by the stagnation in trade. Many, again, are lads who, earning but very scanty wages, and who having no parents able or willing to maintain them, are compelled to resort to common lodging-houses. The very fact that the vast majority use every means in their power to avert the necessity of living in these places, before they have become habituated to their abominations, proves, to my mind, that were some means of escape from the dirt and stench and degradation provided for them, by far the larger portion would gladly and gratefully utilize them.

    Humanity, at any rate, prescribes that something should be done to rescue our poorest brothers and sisters, from the unhappy surroundings in which their poverty compels them to exist. We are continually recognizing this principle, and it is only for its extension that I plead. Little difficulty was found in collecting £100,000 for the "People's Palace" at the East-end, and many of the poor will beyond the shadow of a doubt, derive pleasure and profit, both physical and intellectual, from the expenditure. But imagine a "dosser" going to the People's Palace. The poor fellow would want a bath and a new suit first, and the projectors do not, I fear, propose furnishing intending visitors with these. But there are many ways in which the evils which surround and oppress the denizens of common lodging-houses may be mitigated, and several in which they may be entirely removed. The following suggestions are thrown out, - to use an expression which has now become almost classic, as "a draft for discussion."

    In the first place, the State might take over the common lodging-houses from their present proprietors, as they took over the prisons in order to rid them of the dirt and squalor that made them a by-word years ago. But though this would be a good speculation pecuniarily, and be of inestimable benefit to the dossers, it would be undesirable from many points of view. Still, to show what has already been done in this direction, it may be well to mention an experiment made by the Victorian Government, and the results that accrued from it.

    When the gold-fever drove so many hundreds to lead a rough and precarious life at the diggings, no difficulty was so great as that of obtaining shelter for the night; for the prices charged at the hotels - which, by the way, were few and far between - were absolutely prohibitive as far as the working men who had ventured their all in emigration were concerned. The government took the matter up and established shelter-sheds, in which, for threepence a night, the miners, who brought their own blankets, were accommodated with a sleeping-bunk; and for a slightly increased fee they were provided with a good bed and the necessary bed-covering. The sheds were taken care of by men and women put in by the government, who received no wages, but took the fees paid by those who availed themselves of the accommodation thus offered. The experiment, which was at first purely tentative, was afterwards carried out more completely, and resulted in the greatest benefit to the miners and in no loss to the government.

    But State intervention in matters of this nature has already been carried too far, rather than not far enough, and there are so many other ways in which the necessary reforms may be consummated, that it as unnecessary to adopt what is generally the last resort of impotency. The first thing to do, if the lodging-houses are to remain in the hands of their present owners, is to pass a very drastic measure regulating them. In the first place, it should be provided that all houses receiving a large number of lodgers, should be compelled to afford adequate bathing accommodation. It may be argued that the erection of baths and washhouses in so many districts obviates the necessity for such a provision. But it  must be remembered that a man who has the greatest difficulty in finding the fourpence for his lodging, will almost certainly be unable to provide also threepence for a bath. The inflated profits at present made by the lodging-house keepers would allow them to provide such accommodation without ruining themselves, and would enable their lodgers to enjoy the luxury of a clean skin now and then, a luxury which at present is unknown to many of them.

    The administration of the Lodging Houses' Act should be taken out of the hands of the Commissioners of Police, who might be allowed to devote their concentrated and perfected genius to promulgating directions as to the art of capturing and muzzling the canine race. The size of London and the number of common lodging-houses constitute quite sufficient reason for appointing a special staff of inspectors, who might probably be trusted to execute the law better than is done at present, and might certainly be relied upon not to do it worse. They might, if they chose to exercise to their full extent the powers now conferred upon them by the existing act with all its imperfections, do an immensity of good; and when those powers are more clearly defined, and strengthened as they should be, they might so change the appearance of the doss-'ouses, that they could not be recognizable by their present habitués.

   If, as I very much doubt, the walls and ceilings are at present limewashed twice a year, the operation should be performed at least four times, as the present rate is certainly insufficient. Most of all, a definite  principle should be acted upon with regard to the ventilation of the bedrooms, and the number of beds to be allowed in each. As it is hardly possible to regulate by Act of Parliament the number of vermin to be allowed each square inch of bedclothes, it might perhaps not be inadvisable to prescribe that each bed and its furniture should be cleansed and disinfected at stated periods. Regarding the question of the dissemination of infectious diseases, it would appear to be obviously desirable that when a lodger has fallen ill of such an ailment, the law should provide that the entire house should be thoroughly disinfected, and should enable the local authority to destroy or disinfect, if necessary, not merely the bedding of the person so affected, but of every lodger in that particular room, and, if necessary, of all in the house. In order to enable those who are compelled to dwell in these houses to protect themselves against the keepers of them, and to set the law in motion for themselves if any attempt be made to evade or nullify it, it would be advisable to make it compulsory for the lodging-house keeper to post conspicuously in every room in the house an intelligible epitome of the law regulating their houses, just as pawnbrokers are obliged to post up similar notices in their shops. These suggestions for the strengthening and improvement of the law are of course crude and imperfect, but it should be borne in mind that they are the result of practical experience, and the want of them or of others equivalent to them has been realized by me on more than one occasion.

     Statements have recently been made, by secretaries of companies and others, to the effect that many of the blocks of artizans' dwellings recently erected are wholly or partially unoccupied. If arrangements could be made by which the rent of such tenements could be paid nightly instead of weekly, I venture to say that this would afford the means of relief to many a poor family at present involuntarily compelled to dwell amidst the dirt, dissipation, and discomfort that are the invariable surroundings of a lodging-house.

    But if all the suggestions set forth above were drafted in an Act and passed into law, they would only constitute, to use Carlyle's description of the poor- law, "an anodyne, not a remedy." The only real and effectual way in which to improve the common lodging-houses is to improve them off the face of the earth; and the problem that demands consideration with a view to its solution is how is this to be done so as to be a benefit to the dosser without adding to the burdens of the public.

    The profits on the lodging-house business are enormous. The expenses are so small, the accommodation provided is so horribly bad, and therefore so very cheap, the damage that can be done to the furniture and fittings so infinitesimal, that the lodging-house keeper is enabled to go on his way rejoicing, while his customers wallow in the filth and dirt in which he keeps them in order to increase his own gains. Would it not be possible, by the formation of companies promoted for the purpose of buying out the present lodging-house proprietors and erecting new and sanitary buildings, to rid the metropolis of foul and abominable dens which are a disgrace and scandal to it? Such companies should be empowered, by private bill legislation or otherwise, to purchase compulsorily and at a fair valuation, hut without giving compensation for disturbance, any lodging- house, or cluster of lodging-houses, which could be shown to be in an insanitary condition, or to be ill-regulated. On the other hand, the company should be bound to erect, within a brief space of time, other houses in the place of those they demolish. For it should not be forgotten that there is a dual object to be served: firstly, to get rid of the existing doss-'ouses; and, secondly, to provide others which may answer their purpose without possessing their imperfections and disadvantages.

    "Would you, then," some people may say, "build palaces for people who are as low and depraved as those whom you yourself have described in these pages?" By no means. Luxury would only frighten away the very people for whom it is necessary to provide. The sort of lodging-house it would be desirable to build, would be a plain, solid erection, with large and, above all, lofty rooms, well ventilated and airy. Bathing accommodation and proper lavatories should be provided. The furniture should be as plain as it is possible to procure, but substantial withal. It would be desirable, too, for plain wholesome food to be sold on the premises at similar prices to those charged in coffee-houses, so that the lodgers should be able to obtain a meal which did not consist of a  decayed "'addick," or a bloater in a state of putrefaction. There would be, of course, a profit on the sale of these provisions, and benefit would thus be conferred on the dossers and the shareholders at one and the same time.

    "Would it pay?" Such a company should pay a dividend of about ten or twelve per cent, and as times go, that is not bad interest for money. At present of course the profits are many times as large proportionately, but I am calculating on the hypothesis that every effort would be made to give thoroughly good value for money. It is easy enough to see about what amount the present proprietors make, and, taking their gains as a basis for an estimate, to arrive at some sort of an idea as to the probable profits. Take, for example, the case of the Beehive. There are three hundred beds there, some of which are let at four- pence, and some at sixpence per night. As some are occasionally unlet, it will be well to reckon them all at the lower price, which leaves the gross takings at about £35 weekly. The working expenses do not amount to more than £5, or at the most £7, per week, and we shall be making a handsome allowance if we deduct another £3 for interest on money laid out. Deduct, if you will, another £3 for sundries, and you will still leave the lodging-house keeper £20 a week clear profit - a profit, be it remarked, which is entirely derived from his poorer brethren, whom he, in order to increase his gains, keeps in a horrible condition of filth, squalor, and degradation.
   
One or two precautions would have to be observed  in order that such a company should be successful. It would be necessary to dissociate all idea of charity from the matter, for human nature is averse to considering as a favour that for which cash is paid. It should be undertaken as a commercial speculation, in which it is intended to give the best possible value for money, but in which the relative positions of purchaser and vendor are maintained. Above all, in order to secure the adherence of the very lowest it would be advisable to keep the parson away from such an .enterprise. I do not say this because I am unaware of, or fail to appreciate, the noble work which is done by the clergymen and ministers of all denominations among the poor. But we are dealing with a class of people who are most of them indifferent or inimical to religion, and to try and force it down their throats would he to repel the very folk whom we most earnestly want to attract. The first object to be gained is to make them decent. Cleanliness is not only next to godliness, but it is the first station on the road. Once make those who have lived for years in filth recognize the desirability of a clean bed, a clean room, and a clean skin; give them light, warmth, and comfort elsewhere than in the dram-shops, make them understand that there are higher objects to be attained in the world than the mere securing of their kip-money, and much will have been done towards the great work of the social and moral regeneration of the outcasts of society. In a word, make them fit for earth, and you will be, indirectly perhaps, but still practically, doing a great deal towards making them fit for Heaven.

[Hiram Abiff]

CHAPTER XII.

DOSS-'OUSE POLITICS.

MOST of the dossers talk politics - and such politics. They are, as a rule, amazingly and amusingly ignorant of even notorious facts, and circumstances that are in every one's mouth. They remind one of the famous epitaph on Sir Nathaniel Wraxall, " Men, measures, seasons, scenes, and facts all, misquoting, misstating, misplacing, misdating." The orator at Cooney's is a fair sample of the man who discusses politics in a doss-'ouse, and if there could be anything more remarkable than their ignorance, it is the strained attention with which such oracles are listened to by their companions. The natural result of the circumstances amidst which these men live is that they lose, to a large extent, whatever intelligence they may once have possessed, that their faculties become blunted, and that they arc far less able to express themselves on topics of political or general interest than an ordinarily sharp fourth-standard boy in a Board School. Blue-gown, for example, had only one idea in regard to what he called "them bloomin' pollertics." He wanted to marry the Baroness Burdett-Coutts, in  which event, he said, he should be able to reform the common lodging-houses. He said this in all sober seriousness, and he is not the only man I have met in these places with ideas so childish. Those who do talk serious politics in a sensible fashion, generally discuss the fair-trade heresy, and I am bound to say that I never, during all my experience of the doss-'ouses, heard a single man who had a good word to say for our system of free imports. This made a remarkable impression on me; for, opposed to them as I was, I could not fail to notice that every man who had formerly occupied a good position ascribed the stagnation in trade which had ruined him to Free Trade as understood and practised in England. Even those most strongly prejudiced in favour of our present fiscal system cannot but ponder over the fact that so many of the poorer class attribute all their misfortunes to it.

    But the particular phase of doss-'ouse politics to which I wish to call attention is one which I venture to believe constitutes a growing danger to the State; namely, the strong predisposition of the vast majority of the dossers in favour of that militant socialism which leads to revolution.

    These men are discontented, and many of them have reason; but, as is well known, for every discontented man in the country who has a real grievance, there are a score who have none. And all are equally dissatisfied. They pass their days in the streets, where they see wealth, property, and accumulated treasure, which they may envy but dare not hope to share. They come home in the evening to the loathsome place in which they are to spend the night, a den reeking with dirt, and breathing with horrible mephitic odours. Then they ponder over social inequalities; they brood upon their undoubted wrongs; they exaggerate their grievances; they forget or condone their own misconduct or mistakes; and they become, not unnaturally perhaps, enemies to a constitution under which they suffer such hardships, and to which they mistakenly ascribe their evil lot. This accounts for the number of men who sit apart from the rest of their companions in the lodging-houses, silent, moody, discontented; pondering over their real grievances and aggravating them by dreaming of imaginary wrongs. Draw one of these men into conversation, and in all probability he will first declare that he is condemned to live in squalor and misery because he has no vote, and then he will proceed to inveigh against our present social system, and express a pious aspiration for the advent of the day of reckoning between the "classes" and the " masses."

    The times are specially favourable to the growth of such a spirit. If a man whose feelings have been wrought upon in the manner I suggest goes out on a Sunday morning, he has dinned into his ears from the street corners the pernicious doctrines of an impracticable Socialism. If he opens a newspaper he reads of conspiracies against the existence of law and the possession of property in every quarter of the globe. The Anarchists in America, the Nihilists in Russia, the Socialists in Holland, Belgium, France, and Germany,  and, nearer home, the Fenians in Ireland, are all engaged in the same war. He hears dim and vague accounts of what the Revolution in France was like, and how the sans cullotes endeavoured to hasten the millenium there. And he is the sans cullotte of England. His discontent grows, and determination to do something - it scarce matters to him what - grows with it.

    Of course there are a number of people who will pooh-pooh the existence of this state of things. "No one would ever be so discontented or fatuous as to attempt to cause a revolution in England. There is no danger, or, at all events, not for our day." Ah, there it is "After us the deluge." The old selfishness that allowed similar and greater evils to grow in unhappy France until at last the deluge came roaring and rushing and sweeping down with it all that was worthiest and best as well as all that was meanest and worst.

    But are we so secure? Does the position of affairs in our own country and abroad justify such confidence. In America, those who know assert that the industrial war - the struggle between capital and labour - has only just commenced. In Germany, political passion is seething and hissing, and may any day boil over. In France, financial difficulties may at any moment precipitate a crisis. And here in England the terribly prolonged industrial depression is our great foe, and should any of the other catastrophes hinted at occur, that depression may be so far intensified as to constitute a formidable danger.

  We have not been without warnings. When last winter a brutal mob rushed through the streets and looted the shops of the West-end, most people said it was the work of roughs and larrikins whose only object was plunder. They grievously misunderstood the facts. Many - nay most - of the men who took part in the riots of that day came from the low lodging-houses, and though the majority perhaps were actuated solely by cupidity and greed, there was many a stern, determined man there who believed that in plundering and destroying he was merely executing the righteous wrath of starved, oppressed, and discontented labour against harsh, bloated, and unsympathetic capital.

    Next winter the doss-'ouses will be fuller than ever, for trade seems to be going to the bad faster than before, and men are thrown out of work by scores every week. If the winter be long and hard, men will "clem," women will wail, and children cry for bread. If the winter be dark as well as long and hard, men may try to avoid "clemming" as they did last year, but on a larger scale. To wish that the men who dwell in common lodging-houses might be contented, would be to wish them devoid of every quality, every thought, every aspiration that raises them above the brutes. To deny the existence of their grievance is to enhance its intensity. To admit its existence and do nothing to remedy it, is to give just cause for the growth of discontent and for any means that discontent may take to proclaim itself.

    It may be - pray Heaven it may be - that something will be done, and speedily. If so, my object will be achieved, and I can only trust that whatever means may be taken to secure the amelioration of the condition of those unhappy ones whose lot I have endeavoured to depict, may be successful.

    It may be, on the other hand, that this terrible abuse may be allowed to grow and spread like a foul, festering ulcer. What may happen then, who knows? We can only be guided by what has happened in other lands where the just complaints of the poor have been ignored, and their cry for justice and for pity has been unheard. It may yet be so in England. Should we elect to go on in the old rut, strong in the consciousness and the confidence of our own wealth and power  - wealth and power which in this connection constitute our greatest danger, because they contrast so bitterly with the poverty and weakness of those who plead for help unheard-it may be that we shall be harshly awakened and cruelly disillusionized; that before very many years have flown we shall be compelled to read in haggard, wolfish faces, robbed of every tender or human expression, to hear in hoarse cries of menace, ay, even of lawless triumph, that lesson that has been so sharply taught in other lands than ours-that what might once, not long since, have been Reform, has grown and swelled and gathered force and volume until the torrent can no longer be stemmed, and we are confronted by REVOLUTION.

by Howard J. Goldsmid, 1886

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