Chapter 2

The next man I spoke to was the flower artist, whom I have already mentioned, whose work, by the way, if a little striking in colour, was by no means bad, especially as he had no real flowers to draw from. By trade he was a lawyer's clerk; but he stated that, unfortunately for him, the head partner of his firm went bankrupt six years before, and the bad times, together with the competition of female labour in the clerical department, prevented him from obtaining another situation, so he had been obliged to fall back upon flower painting. He was a married man, but he said, 'While I could make a fair week's money, things were comfortable, but when orders fell slack I was requested to go, as my room was preferable to my company, and being a man of nervous temperament I could not stand it, and have been here ever since'--that was for about ten weeks. He managed to make enough for his board and lodging by the sale of his flower-pictures.

A third man informed me that he had opened twenty-seven shops for a large firm of tobacconists, and then left to start in business for himself; also he used to go out window-dressing, in which he was skilled. Then, about nine years ago, his wife began to drink, and while he was absent in hospital, neglected his business so that it became worthless. Finally she deserted him, and he had heard nothing of her since. After that he took to drink himself. He came to this Shelter intermittently, and supported himself by an occasional job of window-dressing. The Salvation Army was trying to cure this man of his drinking habits.

A fourth man, a Eurasian, was a schoolmaster in India, who drifted to this country, and had been for four years in the Colney Hatch Asylum. He was sent to the Salvation Army by the After Care Society. He had been two years in the Shelter, and was engaged in saving up money to go to America. He was employed in the Shelter as a scrubber, and also as a seller of food tickets, by which means he had saved some money. Also he had a £5 note, which his sister sent to him. This note he was keeping to return to her as a present on her birthday! His story was long and miserable, and his case a sad one. Still, he was capable of doing work of a sort.

Another very smart and useful man had been a nurse in the Army Medical Corps, which he left some years ago with a good character. Occasionally he found a job at nursing, and stayed at the Shelter, where he was given employment between engagements.

Yet another, quite a young person, was a carman who had been discharged through slackness of work in the firm of which he was a servant. He had been ten weeks in the Institution, to which he came from the workhouse, and hoped to find employment at his trade.

In passing through this building, I observed a young man of foreign appearance seated in a window-place reading a book, and asked his history. I was told that he was a German of education, whose ambition it is to become a librarian in his native country. He had come to England in order to learn our language, and being practically without means, drifted into this place, where he was employed in cleaning the windows and pursued his studies in the intervals of that humble work. Let us hope that in due course his painstaking industry will be rewarded, and his ambition fulfilled.

All these cases, and others that I have no space to mention, belonged to the class of what I may call the regular 'hangers-on' of this particular Shelter. As I visited it in the middle of the day, I did not see its multitude of normal nightly occupants. Of such men, however, I shall be able to speak elsewhere.

THE SPA ROAD ELEVATOR

BERMONDSEY

The next Institution that I inspected was that of a paper-sorting works at Spa Road, Bermondsey, where all sorts of waste paper are dealt with in enormous quantities. Of this stuff some is given and some is bought. Upon delivery it goes to the sorters, who separate it out according to the different classes of the material, after which it is pressed into bales by hydraulic machinery and sold to merchants to be re-made.

These works stand upon two acres of land. Parts of the existing buildings were once a preserve factory, but some of them have been erected by the Army. There remain upon the site certain dwelling-houses, which are still let to tenants. These are destined to be pulled down whenever money is forthcoming to extend the factory.

The object of the Institution is to find work for distressed or fallen persons, and restore them to society. The Manager of this 'Elevator,' as it is called, informed me that it employs about 480 men, all of whom are picked up upon the streets. As a rule, these men are given their board and lodging in return for work during the first week, but no money, as their labour is worth little. In the second week, 6d. is paid to them in cash; and, subsequently, this remuneration is added to in proportion to the value of the labour, till in the end some of them earn 8s. or 9s. a week in addition to their board and lodging.

I asked the Officer in charge what he had to say as to the charges of sweating and underselling which have been brought against the Salvation Army in connexion with this and its other productive Institutions.

He replied that they neither sweated nor undersold. The men whom they picked up had no value in the labour market, and could get nothing to do because no one would employ them, many of them being the victims of drink or entirely unskilled. Such people they overlooked, housed, fed, and instructed, whether they did or did not earn their food and lodging, and after the first week paid them upon a rising scale. The results were eminently satisfactory, as even allowing for the drunkards they found that but few cases, not more than 10 per cent, were hopeless. Did they not rescue these men most of them would sink utterly; indeed, according to their own testimony many of such wastrels were snatched from suicide. As a matter of fact, also, they employed more men per ton of paper than any other dealers in the trade.

With reference to the commercial results, after allowing for interest on the capital invested, the place did not pay its way. He said that a sum of £15,000 was urgently required for the erection of a new building on this site, some of those that exist being of a rough-and-ready character. They were trying to raise subscriptions towards this object, but found the response very slow.

He added that they collected their raw material from warehouses, most of it being given to them, but some they bought, as it was necessary to keep the works supplied, which could not be done with the gratis stuff alone. Also they found that the paper they purchased was the most profitable.

These works presented a busy spectacle of useful industry. There was the sorting-room, where great masses of waste-paper of every kind was being picked over by about 100 men and separated into its various classes. The resulting heaps are thrown through hoppers into bins. From the bins this sorted stuff passes into hydraulic presses which crush it into bales that, after being wired, are ready for sale.

It occurred to me that the dealing with this mass of refuse paper must be an unhealthy occupation; but I was informed that this is not the case, and certainly the appearance of the workers bore out the statement.

After completing a tour of the works I visited one of the bedrooms containing seventy beds, where everything seemed very tidy and fresh. Clean sheets are provided every week, as are baths for the inmates. In the kitchen were great cooking boilers, ovens, etc., all of which are worked by steam produced by the burning of the refuse of the sorted paper. Then I saw the household salvage store, which contained enormous quantities of old clothes and boots; also a great collection of furniture, including a Turkish bath cabinet, all of which articles had been given to the Army by charitable folk. These are either given away or sold to the employes of the factory or to the poor of the neighbourhood at a very cheap rate.

The man in charge of this store was an extremely good-looking and gentlemanly young follow of University education, who had been a writer of fiction, and once acted as secretary to a gentleman who travelled on the Continent and in the East. Losing his employment, he took to a life of dissipation, became ill, and sank to the very bottom. He informed me that his ideals and outlook on life were now totally changed. I have every hope that he will do well in the future, as his abilities are evidently considerable, and Nature has favoured him in many ways.

I interviewed a number of the men employed in these works, most of whom had come down through drink, some of them from very good situations. One had been the superintendent of a sewing-machine company. He took to liquor, left his wife, and found himself upon the streets. Now he was a traveller for the Salvation Army, in the interests of the Waste-Paper Department, had regained his position in life, and was living with his wife and family in a comfortable house.

Another was a grocer by profession, all of whose savings were stolen, after which he took to drink. He had been three months in the works, and at the time of my visit was earning 6s. a week with food and lodging.

Another had been a Barnardo boy, who came from Canada as a ship's steward, and could find nothing to do in England. Another was a gentleman's servant, who was dismissed because the family left London.

Another was an auctioneer, who failed from want of capital, took to drink, and emigrated to Canada. Two years later he fell ill with pleurisy, and was sent home because the authorities were afraid that his ailment might turn to consumption. He stated that at this time he had given up drink, but could obtain no employment, so came upon the streets. As he was starving and without hope, not having slept in a bed for ten nights, he was about to commit suicide when the Salvation Army picked him up. He had seen his wife for the first time in four years on the previous Whit Monday, and they proposed to live together again so soon as he secured permanent employment.

Another had been a soldier in the Seaforth Highlanders, and served in the Egyptian Campaign of 1881, and also in the American Army. Subsequently he was employed as a porter at a lodging-house at a salary of 25s. a week, but left because of trouble about a woman. He came upon the streets, and, being unable to find employment, was contemplating suicide, when he fell under the influence of the Army at the Blackfriars Shelter.

All these men, and others whom I spoke to at random but have no space to write of, assured me that they were quite satisfied with their treatment at the works, and repudiated--some of them with indignation--the suggestion that I put to them tentatively that they suffered from a system of sweating. For the most part, indeed, their gratitude for the help they were receiving in the hour of need was very evident and touching.

THE GREAT PETER STREET SHELTER

WESTMINSTER

This fine building is the most up-to-date Men's Shelter that the Salvation Army possesses in London. It was once the billiard works of Messrs. Burroughes and Watts, and is situated in Westminster, quite near to the Houses of Parliament. I visited it about eight o'clock in the evening, and at its entrance was confronted with the word 'Full,' inscribed in chalk upon its portals, at which poor tramps, deprived of their hope of a night's lodging, were staring disconsolately. It reminded me of a playhouse upon a first-night of importance, but, alas! the actors here play in a tragedy more dreadful in its cumulative effect than any that was ever put upon the stage.

This Shelter is wonderfully equipped and organized. It contains sitting or resting-rooms, smoking-rooms, huge dormitories capable of accommodating about 600 sleepers; bathrooms, lavatories, extensive hot-water and warming apparatus, great kitchens, and butteries, and so forth. In the sitting and smoking-rooms, numbers of derelict men were seated. Some did nothing except stare before them vacantly. Some evidently were suffering from the effects of drink or fatigue; some were reading newspapers which they had picked up in the course of their day's tramp. One, I remember, was engaged in sorting out and crumpling up a number of cigar and cigarette ends which he had collected from the pavements, carefully grading the results in different heaps, according to the class of the tobacco (how strong it must be!) either for his own consumption or for sale to other unfortunates. In another place, men were eating the 1d. or 1/2d. suppers that they had purchased.

Early as it was, however, the great dormitories were crowded with hundreds of the lodgers, either in bed or in process of getting there. I noticed that they all undressed themselves, wrapping up their rags in bundles, and, for the most part slept quite naked. Many of them struck me as very fine fellows physically, and the reflection crossed my mind, seeing them thus _in puris naturalibus_, that there was little indeed to distinguish them from a crowd of males of the upper class engaged, let us say, in bathing. It is the clothes that make the difference to the eye.

In this Shelter I was told, by the way, that there exists a code of rough honour among these people, who very rarely attempt to steal anything from each other. Having so little property, they sternly respect its rights. I should add that the charge made for accommodation and food is 3d. per night for sleeping, and 1d. or 1/2d. per portion of food.

The sight of this Institution crowded with human derelicts struck me as most sad, more so indeed than many others that I have seen, though, perhaps, this may have been because I was myself tired out with a long day of inspection.

The Staff-Captain in charge here told me his history, which is so typical and interesting that I will repeat it briefly. Many years ago (he is now an elderly man) he was a steward on board a P. and O. liner, and doing well. Then a terrible misfortune overwhelmed him. Suddenly his wife and child died, and, as a result of the shock, he took to drink. He attempted to cut his throat (the scar remains to him), and was put upon his trial for the offence. Subsequently he drifted on to the streets, where he spent eight years. During all this time his object was to be rid of life, the methods he adopted being to make himself drunk with methylated spirits, or any other villainous and fiery liquor, and when that failed, to sleep at night in wet grass or ditches. Once he was picked up suffering from inflammation of the lungs and carried to an infirmary, where he lay senseless for three days. The end of it was that a Salvation Army Officer found him in Oxford Street, and took him to a Shelter in Burne Street, where he was bathed and put to bed.

That was many years ago, and now he is to a great extent responsible for the management of this Westminster Refuge. Commissioner Sturgess, one of the head Officers of the Army, told me that their great difficulty was to prevent him from overdoing himself at this charitable task. I think the Commissioner said that sometimes he would work eighteen or twenty hours out of the twenty-four.

One day this Staff-Captain played a grim little trick upon me. I was seated at luncheon in a Salvation Army building, when the door opened, and there entered as dreadful a human object as I have ever seen. The man was clad in tatters, his bleeding feet were bound up with filthy rags; he wore a dingy newspaper for a shirt. His face was cut and plastered over roughly; he was a disgusting sight. He told me, in husky accents, that drink had brought him down, and that he wanted help. I made a few appropriate remarks, presented him with a small coin, and sent him to the Officers downstairs.

A quarter of an hour later the Staff-Captain appeared in his uniform and explained that he and the 'object' were the same person. Again it was the clothes that made the difference. Those which he had worn when he appeared at the luncheon-table were the same in which he had been picked up on the streets of London. Also he thanked me for my good advice which he said he hoped to follow, and for the sixpence that he announced his intention of wearing on his watch-chain. For my part I felt that the laugh was against me. Perhaps if I had thought the Salvation Army capable of perpetrating a joke, I should not have been so easily deceived.

This Staff-Captain gave me much information as to the class of wanderers who frequent these Shelters, He estimated that about 50 per cent of them sink to that level through the effects of drink. That is to say, if by the waving of some magic wand intoxicants and harmful drugs should cease to be obtainable in this country, the bulk of extreme misery which needs such succour, and it may be added of crime at large, would be lessened by one-half. This is a terrible statement, and one that seems to excuse a great deal of what is called 'teetotal fanaticism.' The rest, in his view, owe their fall to misfortune of various kinds, which often in its turn leads to flight to the delusive and destroying solace of drink. Thus about 25 per cent of the total have been afflicted with sickness or acute domestic troubles. Or perhaps they are 'knocked out' by shock, such as is brought on by the loss of a dearly-loved wife or child, and have never been able to recover from that crushing blow. The remainder are the victims of advancing age and of the cruel commercial competition of our day. Thus he said that the large business firms destroy and devour the small shopkeepers, as a hawk devours sparrows; and these little people or their employes, if they are past middle age, can find no other work. Especially is this the case since the Employers' Liability Acts came into operation, for now few will take on hands who are not young and very strong, as older folk must naturally be more liable to sickness and accident.

Again, he told me that it has become the custom in large businesses of which the dividends are falling, to put in a man called an 'Organizer,' who is often an American.

This Organizer goes through the whole staff and mercilessly dismisses the elderly or the least efficient, dividing up their work among those who remain. So these discarded men fall to rise no more and drift to the poorhouse or the Shelters or the jails, and finally into the river or a pauper's grave. First, however, many spend what may be called a period of probation on the streets, where they sleep at night under arches or on stairways, or on the inhospitable flagstones and benches of the Embankment, even in winter.

The Staff-Captain informed me that on one night during the previous November he counted no less than 120 men, women, and children sleeping in the wet on or in the neighbourhood of the Embankment. Think of it--in this one place! Think of it, you whose women and children, to say nothing of yourselves, do not sleep on the Embankment in the wet in November. It may be answered that they might have gone to the casual ward, where there are generally vacancies. I suppose that they might, but so perverse are many of them that they do not. Indeed, often they declare bluntly that they would rather go to prison than to the casual ward, as in prison they are more kindly treated.

The reader may have noted as he drove along the Embankment or other London thoroughfares at night in winter, long queues of people waiting their turn to get something. What they are waiting for is a cup of soup and, perhaps, an opportunity of sheltering till the dawn, which soup and shelter are supplied by the Salvation Army, and sometimes by other charitable Organizations. I asked whether this provision of gratis food did in fact pauperize the population, as has been alleged. The Staff-Captain answered that men do not as a rule stop out in the middle of the winter till past midnight to get a pint of soup and a piece of bread. Of course, there might be exceptions; but for the most part those who take this charity, do so because if is sorely needed.

The cost of these midnight meals is reckoned by the Salvation Army at about £8 per 1,000, including the labour involved in cooking and distribution. This money is paid from the Army's Central Fund, which collects subscriptions for that special purpose.

'Of course, our midnight soup has its critics,' said one of the Officers who has charge of its distribution; 'but all I know is that it saves many from jumping into the river.'

During the past winter, that is from November 3, 1909, to March 24, 1910, 163,101 persons received free accommodation and food at the hands of the Salvation Army in connexion with its Embankment Soup Distribution Charity.

THE FREE BREAKFAST SERVICE

BLACKFRIARS SHELTER

On a Sunday in June I attended the Free Breakfast service at the Blackfriars Shelter. The lease of this building was acquired by the Salvation Army from a Temperance Company. Behind it lay contractors' stables, which were also bought; after which the premises were rebuilt and altered to suit the purposes to which they are now put, the stabling being for the most part converted into sleeping-rooms.

The Officer who accompanied me, Lieut.-Colonel Jolliffe, explained that this Blackfriars Shelter is, as it were, the dredger for and the feeder of all the Salvation Army's Social Institutions for men in London. Indeed, it may be likened to a dragnet set to catch male unfortunates in this part of the Metropolis. Here, as in the other Army Shelters, are great numbers of bunks that are hired out at 3d. a night, and the usual food-kitchens and appliances.

I visited one or two of these, well-ventilated places that in cold weather are warmed by means of hot-water pipes to a heat of about 70 deg., as the clothing on the bunks is light.

I observed that although the rooms had only been vacated for a few hours, they were perfectly inoffensive, and even sweet; a result that is obtained by a very strict attention to cleanliness and ample ventilation. The floors of these places are constantly scrubbed, and the bunks undergo a process of disinfection about once a week. As a consequence, in all the Army Shelters the vermin which sometimes trouble common lodging-houses are almost unknown.

I may add that the closest supervision is exercised in these places when they are occupied. Night watchmen are always on duty, and an Officer sleeps in a little apartment attached to each dormitory. The result is that there are practically no troubles of any kind. Sometimes, however, a poor wanderer is found dead in the morning, in which case the body is quietly conveyed away to await inquest.

I asked what happened when men who could not produce the necessary coppers to pay for their lodging, applied for admission. The answer was that the matter was left to the discretion of the Officer in charge. In fact, in cases of absolute and piteous want, men are admitted free, although, naturally enough, the Army does not advertise that this happens. If it did, its hospitality would be considerably overtaxed.

Leaving the dormitories, I entered the great hall, in which were gathered nearly 600 men seated upon benches, every one of which was filled. The faces and general aspect of these men were eloquent of want and sorrow. Some of them appeared to be intent upon the religious service that was going on, attendance at this service being the condition on which the free breakfast is given to all who need food and have passed the previous night in the street. Others were gazing about them vacantly, and others, sufferers from the effects of drink, debauchery, or fatigue, seemed to be half comatose or asleep.