Part 5

“We girls was sent to bed at 7·30 and got no supper, but the boys was let up later and got bread and a big thick bit of cheese”.

A boy of eight chronicles that

“I had custard for my Tea and some jelly which was called corn flour”.

One small observer had apparently discovered the importance of meal-times even to the sea itself, for he writes: “The sea always went out at dinner time and came back when Tea was ready”. I can see my readers smile, but to those of us who know intimately the lives of the poor, the significance of meals and their regularity occupying so large a place in a child’s mind is more pathetic than comic.

From all the letters the impression is gathered of the generosity of the poor hostesses to the London children. For 5s. a week (not 9d. a day) a growing hungry boy or girl is taken into a cottager’s home, put in the best bed, cared for, fed three or four times a day, and often entertained at cost of time, thought, or money.

“I like the day which was Bank lolyiday Monday because it was a very joyafull day. My Lady took me to a Flower Show. It was 3d. to go in but she paid, and I had swings and saw the flowers, and then we had bought Tea, and a man gave away ginger beer.”

Another girl of eleven writes:--

“My lady took me to Windsor Castle. The first thing I saw was the Thames. I went and had a paddled and then I went in the Castle and saw a lot of apple trees.”

The visits to Windsor are modern-day versions of the old story of the Cat who went to see the King and saw only “Mousey sitting under the Chair,” for another child records:--

“There were plenty of orchards with apple trees in it. But we would not pick them, or else we would be locked up but I went in the Castle and I saw a very large table with fifty chairs all round it and a piano and a looking glass covered up on the wall.”

One boy who was taken to the lighthouse, though only ten, was evidently eager for useful information. He writes:--

“I asked the man how many candlepowers it was but I forgot what he said----”

an experience not unknown to his elders and betters!

This child records that “when playing on the beach I made Buckingham Palace but a big boy came along and trod it and so we went home to bed”--an unconscious repetition of the often-recorded conclusion of Pepys’ eventful days.

One of the small excursionists was taken by her hostess to see Tonbridge, and writes: “We went to the muzeam wear we saw jitnoes of different people”.

The hospitality of the clergymen and their families and the goodness of doctors is also often mentioned. Some of the children write so vividly that the country vicarage and its sweet-smelling flowers, the hot curate and the active ladies, rise up as a picture, the “atmosphere” of which is kindness and “the values” incalculable. Other children merely record the facts--in some cases anticipating time and establishing an order of clergywomen.

“We asked the Vicar Miss Leigh if we could swim and she said No because one boy caught a cold.”

“We all went to the Reveren to a party.” “Saturday mornings we went to the Rectory haveing games, swings, sea sawes and refreshments.” “The party by the Church was fine.” “They had a Church down there called the Salvation Army. I thought there was only one Salvation Army.”

One of the Vicars hardly conveyed the impression he intended, for the boy writes:--

“We went to Church in the morning and in the afternoon for a walk as the Clergyman told us not to go to Sunday School as he wanted us to enjoy ourselves”.

One wonders if the Sunday School organization and the “intolerable strain” which would be put on it by London visitors was in that vicar’s mind.

The letter that is sent by the Countryside Committee to the children before they leave London tells them in simple language something about the trees and flowers and creatures which they will see during their holiday, and asks them to write on anything which they themselves have observed or which gave them pleasure to see. This request is granted, for the children wrote:--

“The trees seemed so happy they danced”.

“The wind was blowing and the branches of the trees was swinging themselves.”

“The rainbow is made of raindrops and the sun, tears and smiles.”

“It was nice to sit on the grass and see the trees prancing in the breeze.”

These extracts show, in the four small mortals who had each spent the ten years of their lives in crowded streets, an almost poetic capacity, and the beginning of a power of nature sympathy that will be a source of unrecorded solace. The sights of the night impress many children, the sky seen for the first time uninterrupted by gas lamps.

“When I (aged eleven) looked into the sky one night you could hardly see any of the blue for it was light up with stars.”

“I saw a star shoot out of the sky and then it settled in a different place.”

“One night I kept awake and looked for the stars and saw the Big Bear of stars.”

“At night the moon looked as if it were a Queen and the stars were her Attendants.”

“The clouds are making way for the moon to come out.”

The sun, its rising and setting, is also frequently mentioned. One child had developed patriotism to such an extent as to write:--

“One day I looked up to the Sky and saw the sun was rising in the shape of the British Isles”.

Alas! What would the Kaiser think?

Another of my correspondents expressed surprise that “the moon came from where the sky touched the Earth,” an evidence of street-bound horizon.

In other letters the writers record:--

“I saw the sun set it was like a big silver Eagle’s wing laying on a cliff”.

“When the sun was setting out of the clouds came something that looked like a County Council Steamer”.

That must have been a rather alarming sunset, but hardly less so than “the cloud which was like Saint Paul’s Cathedral coming down on our heads”.

The animals gave great pleasure and created wonder:--

“The cows made a grunting noise, the baa lambs made a pretty little shriek”.

“The cows I saw were lazy, they were laying. One was a bull who I daresay had been tossing somebody.”

“I heard a bird chirping it was make a noise like chirp chirp twee.”

“I saw a big dragon fly. It was like a long caterpillar with long sparkling transparent wings.”

“The birds are not like ourn they are light brown.”

“There were wasps which was yellow and pretty but unkind.”

“I (aged eleven) saw a little blackbird--its head was off by a Cat. I made a dear little grave and so berreyed it under the Tree.”

The flowers, of course, come in for the greatest attention and after them the trees are most usually referred to:--

“I (aged nine) know all the flowers that lived in the garden, but not all those who lived in the field”.

“Stinging nettles are a nuisance to people who have holes in their boots.”

“The Pond is all covered with Rushes. These had flowers like a rusty poker.”

“I picked lots of flowers and always brought them home--”

shows influence of the Selborne Society in teaching children not to pick and throw away what is alive and growing.

“The Cuckoo dines on other birds.”

“There was one bird called the squirrel.”

“Only gentlemen are allowed to shoot pheasants as they are expensive.”

“We caught fish in the river some were small others about 2 feet long.”

“Butterflies dont do much work.”

“The trunk of the oak is used for constructing furniture, coffins and other expensive objects.”

But my readers will be weary, so I will conclude with the pregnant remark of a little prig, who writes:--

“I think the country was in a good condition for _I_ found plenty of interesting things in it.”

One or two of my small correspondents show an early disposition to see faults and remember misfortunes.

“There was no strikes on down there but there was a large number of wasps,” was the reflection of one evidently conscious of the fly in every ointment. Another (aged ten) writes:--

“DEAR MADAM,--When I was down in the country I was lying on the couch and a wasp stung me. As I was on the common a man chased me, and I fell head first and legs after into the prickles, and the prickles dug me and hurt me.... I was nearly scorched down in the country.... One day when I fed the Pigs the great big fat pig bit a lump out of my best pinafore. One morning when I was in bed the little boy brought the cat up and put it on my face. When I was down in the country the Common caught a light for the sun was always too hot. So I must close with my love.”

Was there ever such a catalogue of misfortunes compressed into one short fortnight? Still, in the intervals she seems to have noticed a considerable number of trees, of which she makes a list, and adds: “I did enjoy myself”. Poor little maiden! Perhaps her elders had graduated in the school of misfortunes, and she had learnt the trick of complaining.

A good many children, both boys and girls, were very conscious of the absence of their home responsibilities.

“I did not see a babbi. I mean to mind it all the time.”

“The ladys girl dont mind the baby as much as me at home. It stops in the garden.”

It opens up a whole realm of matters for reflection: the baby not dragged hither and thither in arms too small and weak for its comfort, and then plumped down on cold or damp stones while its over-burdened nurse snatches a brief game or indulges in a scamper; the clouding of the elder child’s life by unremitting responsibilities, and the effortful labour which sometimes wears out love, though not so often as could be expected, so marvellous is human nature, and its capacity for care and tenderness. “I didn’t have to mind no twins,” writes one small boy of nine, “I think thems a neusence. I wish Mother had not bought them.” But the baby left in a garden! opening its blinking eyes to the wonders of sky and flowers and bees and creatures, while its elder brothers and sister do their share of work and play. This makes a foundation of quiet and pleasure on which to build the strenuous days and anxious years of the later life of struggle and effort.

The reiteration of the kindness of the cottage hostesses would be almost wearisome if one’s imagination did not go behind it and picture the scenes, the hard-worked country woman accepting the suggestion of a child guest with a lively appreciation of the usefulness of the 5s.’s which were to accrue, but that thought receding as the enjoyment of the town child became infectious, until the value given for the value received became forgotten, and generous self-costing kindnesses were showered profusely.

“My lady she was always doing kind to me.” “Mrs. P. washed my clothes before I came home to save Mother doing it.” “My lady told Mr. S. to shake her tree for our apples.” “The person that Boarded me gave me nice thing to bring back.”

In some cases the thrifty, tidy ways of the country hostesses conveyed their lessons.

“She use to make browan bread and She use to make her own cakes and apple turn overs and eggloes and current cake.” “The wind came in my room and blew me in the night.” “We always had table clothes where I was.” “I washed myself well my lady liked it.” “We cleaned our teeth down in the country ever morning.”

Sometimes examples on deeper matters were observed and approved of.

“Every morning and dinner and tea we say grace.” “The lady told us Sunday School was nice and we went.” “We had Church 3 times. Morning noon and night”--

is not reported with entire approval, but the letter ends:--

“I loved my holidays very much and hope that I can go next year to live with the same lady”.

A boy writes:--

“The lady was very kind she never said any naughty words to me”.

And another lad reports:--

“I was fed extremely well and treated with the best respect”.

One little girl had clear views on the proper position of man.

“My ladie,” she writes, “had a big pig 4 little ones, 2 cats. some hens a bird in a cage a apple tree a little boy and a Huband.”

Sometimes the history of the place has been impressed on the children.

“I (aged eleven) was very glad I went to Guildford because Sir Lancelot and Elaine lived there but its name was then Astolat.”

“When I (aged eleven) reached Burnham Thorp I felt the change of air and I heard the birds sing--and then I knew that I should see the place where our great English sailor Lord Nelson was born,”--

he being a character so indissolubly associated with innocent country joys.

The letters both begin and end in a variety of ways, for though I do not write all the letters which are issued to the children by the Countryside Committee of the Children’s Country Holiday Fund, it is considered better for me as Chairwoman to sign them, so as to give a more personal tone to the lengthy printed chat, which the teachers themselves open, kindly read and talk about to the children, and a copy of which each child can have if it so wishes. Thus the reply letters are all sent to me, and the vast majority begin “Dear Madam”; but some are less conventional, and I have those commencing, “Dear Mrs. Barnett,” “Dear Country Holdday Site Commtie,” “Dear friend,” “Dear Miss,” while the feeling of personal relation was evidently so real to one small boy that he began his epistle with “Dear Henrietta”--I delight in that letter! Among the concluding words are the following: “Your affectionate little friend,” “Your loving pupil,” “From one who enjoyed,” “Yours gratefully,” “Yours truly Friend”.

Some of the regrets at leaving the country are very pathetic:--

“I wish I was in the country now”. “I shall never go again; I am too old now.” “I think in the fortnight I had more treats than ever before in all my life.” “The blacking berries were red then and small. They will be black now and big.” “I wish I was with my lady’s baker taking the bread round.” “I enjoyed myself very much, I cannot explain how much. Please God next year I will come again. As I sit at school I always imagine myself roaming in the fields and watching the golden corn, and when I think of it it makes me cry.”

And those tears will find companions in some of the hearts which ache for the joyless lives of our town children, weighted by responsibilities, crippled by poverty, robbed of their birthright of innocent fun. The ecstatic joy of children in response to such simple pleasures tells volumes about their drab existence, their appreciation of adequate food, their warm recognition of kindness, represent privation and surprise. In a deeper sense than Wordsworth used it, “Their gratitude has left me mourning”.

I know, and no one better, the countless servants of the people who are toiling to relieve the sorrows of the poor and their children, but until the conditions of labour, of education, and of housing are fearlessly faced and radically dealt with, their labour can only be palliative and their efforts barren of the best fruit; but articles, as well as holidays, must finish, and so I will conclude by another extract:--

“We had a bottle of Tea and cake and it was 132¾ miles. I saw all sorts of things and come to Waterloo Station and thank you very much.”

HENRIETTA O. BARNETT.

THE RECREATION OF THE PEOPLE.[1]

BY CANON BARNETT.

July, 1907.

[1] From “The Cornhill Magazine”. By permission of the Editor.

Work may, as Carlyle says, be a blessing, but work is not undertaken for work’s sake. Work is part of the universal struggle for existence. Men work to live. But the animal world early found that existence does not consist in keeping alive. All animals play. They let off surplus energy in imitating their own activities, and they recreate exhausted powers by change of occupation. Man, as soon as he came into his inheritance of reason, recognized play as an object of desire, and as well as working for his existence, and perhaps even before he worked to obtain power and glory, he worked to obtain recreation. A man, according to Schiller’s famous saying, is fully human only when he plays.

Work, then, let it be admitted, is undertaken not for work’s sake but largely for the sake of recreation. England has been made the workshop of the world, its fair fields and lovely homesteads have been turned into dark towns and grimy streets, partly in the hope that more of its citizens may have enjoyment in life. Men toil in close offices under dark skies, not just to increase the volume of exports and imports, and not always to increase their power, or to win honour from one another; they dream of happy hours of play, they picture themselves travelling in strange countries or tranquilly enjoying their leisure in some villa or pleasant garden. Men spend laborious days as reformers, on public boards or as public servants, very largely so as to release their neighbours from the prison house of labour, where so many, giving their lives “to some unmeaning taskwork, die unfreed, having seen nothing, still unblest”.

Recreation is an object of work. The recreations of the people consume much of the fruit of the labour of the people. Their play discloses what is in their hearts and minds and to what end they will direct their power. Their use of leisure is a sign-post showing whether the course of the nation is towards extinction in ignorance and self-indulgence, or towards greater brightness in the revelation of character and the service of mankind. By their idle words and by the acts of their idle times men are most fairly judged.

The recreation of the people is therefore a subject of greater importance than is always remembered. The country is being lost or saved in its play, and the use of holidays needs as much consideration as the use of workdays.

Would that some Charles Booth could undertake an inquiry into “the life and leisure of the people” to put alongside that into their life and work! Without such an inquiry the only basis for the consideration which I invite is the impression left on the minds of individuals, and all I can offer is the impression made on my mind by a long residence in East London.

People during the last quarter of a century have greatly increased their command of leisure. The command, as Board of Trade inspectors remind us, is not sufficient as long as the rule of seventy or even sixty hours of work a week still holds in some trades. But the weekly half-holiday has become almost universal, some skilled trades have secured an eight or nine hours’ day, many workshops every year close for a week, and the members of the building trades begin work late and knock off early during the winter months. There is thus much leisure available for recreation. What do the people do? How do these crowds who swarm through the streets on Saturday afternoons spend their holiday?

Many visit the public-houses and try to drink themselves out of their gloom. “To get drunk,” we have been told, is “the shortest way out of Manchester,” and many citizens in every city go at any rate some distance along this way. They find they live a larger, fuller life as, standing in the warm bright bar, they drink and talk as if they were “lords”. The returns which suggest that the drink bill of a workman’s family is 5s. or 6s. a week prove how popular is this use of leisure, and they who begin a holiday by drinking probably spend the rest of it in sleeping. The identification of rest with sleep is very common, and a workman who knows he has a fair claim to rest thinks himself justified in sleeping or dozing hour after hour during Saturday and Sunday. “What,” I once asked an engineer, “should I find most of your mates doing if I called on Sunday?” His answer was short: “Sleeping”.

Another large body of workers as soon as they are free hurry off to some form of excitement. They go in their thousands to see a football-match, they yell with those who yell, they are roused by the spectacle of battle, and they indulge in hot “sultry” talk. Or they go to some race or trial of strength on which bets are possible. They feel in the rise and fall of the chance of winning a new stirring of their dull selves, and they dream of wealth to be enjoyed in wearing a coat with a fur collar and in becoming owners of sporting champions. Or they go to music halls--1,250,000 go every week in London--where if the excitement be less violent it still avails to move their thoughts into other channels. They see colour instead of dusky dirt, they hear songs instead of the clash of machinery, they are interested as a performer risks his life, and the jokes make no demands on their thoughts. The theatres probably are less popular, at any rate among men, but they attract great numbers, especially to plays which appeal to generous impulses. An audience enjoys the easy satisfaction of shouting down a villain. The same sort of excitement is that provided on Sunday mornings in the clubs, where in somewhat sordid surroundings, a few actors and singers try to stir the muddled feelings of their audience by appeals, which are more or less vulgar.

There is finally another large body of released workers who simply go home. They are more in number than is generally imagined, and they constitute the solid part of the community. They are not often found at meetings or clubs. Their opinions are not easily discovered. Large numbers never vote. They go home from work, they make themselves tidy, they do odd jobs about the house, they go out shopping with their wives, they walk with the children, they, as a family party, visit their friends, they sleep, and they read the weekly paper. All this is estimable, and the mere catalogue makes a picture pleasant to the middle-class imagination of what a workman’s life should be. The workers get repose, but from a larger point of view it cannot be said they return to work invigorated by new thoughts and new experiences, with new powers and new conceptions of life’s use. Repose is sterilized recreation.

These, it seems to me, are the three main streams which flow from work to leisure--that towards drink, that towards excitement, and that towards home repose.

There are other workers--an increasing number, but small in comparison with those in one of the main streams--who use their leisure to attend classes, to study with a view to greater technical skill or to read the books now so easily bought. There are some who take other jobs, forgetting that the wages which buy eight hours’ work should buy also eight hours’ sleep and eight hours’ play. There are many who bicycle, some it may be for the excitement of rapid motion, but some also for the joy of visiting the country and of social intercourse. There are many who play games and take vigorous exercise. There are a few--markedly a few--who have hobbies or pursuits on which they exercise their less used powers of heart or head or limb.

Such is the general impression which long experience has left on my mind as to the recreations of the people. It is, however, possible to give a closer inspection to some popular forms of amusement.

Consider first one of the seaside resorts during the month of August. Look at Blackpool, or Margate, or Weston. On the Saturday before Bank Holiday £100,000 was drawn out of the banks at Blackburn and £200,000 from the banks at Oldham, to be spent in recreation, mostly at Blackpool. How was it spent?