XXX



THE next morning we began looking once more for


Paddy's friend, who was called Bozo, and was a screever-


that is, a pavement artist. Addresses did


not exist in Paddy's world, but he had a vague idea that


Bozo might be found in Lambeth, and in the end we ran


across him on the Embankment, where he had established


himself not far from Waterloo Bridge. He was kneeling on


the pavement with a box of chalks, copying a sketch of


Winston Churchill from a penny note-book. The likeness


was not at all bad. Bozo was a small, dark, hook-nosed


man, with curly hair growing low on his head. His right


leg was dreadfully deformed, the foot being twisted heel


forward in a way horrible to see. From his appearance one


could have taken him for a Jew, but he used to deny this


vigorously. He spoke of his hook-nose as "Roman," and


was proud of his resemblance to some Roman Emperor-it


was Vespasian, I think.



Bozo had a strange way of talking, Cockneyfied and


yet very lucid and expressive. It was as though he had


read good books but had never troubled to correct his


grammar. For a while Paddy and I stayed on the


Embankment, talking, and Bozo gave us an account of the


screeving trade. I repeat what he said more or less in his


own words.



"I'm what they call a serious screever. I don't draw in


blackboard chalks like these others, I use proper colours


the same as what painters use; bloody expensive they are,


especially the reds. I use five bobs' worth of colours in a


long day, and never less than two bobs' worth.' Cartoons


is my line-you know, politics and cricket and that. Look


here"-he showed me his notebook-"here's likenesses of all


the political blokes, what I've copied from the papers. I


have a different cartoon every day. For instance, when the


Budget was on I had one of Winston trying to push an


elephant



1


Pavement artists buy their colours in the form of powder,


and work them into cakes with condensed milk


.



marked 'Debt,' and underneath I wrote, 'Will he budge


it?' See? You can have cartoons about any of the parties,


but you mustn't put anything in favour of Socialism,


because the police won't stand it. Once I did a cartoon of


a boa constrictor marked Capital swallowing a rabbit


marked Labour. The copper came along and saw it, and


he says, 'You rub that out, and look sharp about it,' he


says. I had to rub it out. The copper's got the right to


move you on for loitering, and it's no good giving them a


back answer."



I asked Bozo what one could earn at screeving. He


said:



"This time of year, when it don't rain, I take about three


quid between Friday and Sunday-people get their wages


Fridays, you see. I can't work when it rains; the colours


get washed off straight away. Take the year round, I make


about a pound a week, because you can't do much in the


winter. Boat Race day, and Cup Final day, I've took as


much as four pounds. But you have to cut it out of them,


you know; you don't take a bob if you just sit and look at


them. A halfpenny's the usual drop [gift], and you don't


get even that unless you give them a bit of backchat.


Once they've answered you they feel ashamed not to give


you a drop. The best thing's to keep changing your


picture, because when they see you drawing they'll stop


and watch you. The trouble is, the beggars scatter as soon


as you turn round with the hat. You really want a nobber


[assistant] at this game. You keep at work and get a crowd


watching you, and the nobber comes casual-like round the


back of them. They don't know he's the nobber. Then


suddenly he pulls his cap off, and you got them between


two fires like. You'll never get a drop off real toffs. It's


shabby sort of blokes you get most off, and foreigners.


I've had even sixpences off Japs, and blackies, and that.


They're not so bloody mean as what an Englishman is.


Another thing to remember is to keep your money


covered up, except perhaps a penny in the hat. People


won't give you anything if they see you got a bob or two


already."



Bozo had the deepest contempt for the other screevves


on the Embankment. He called them "the salmon


platers." At that time there was a screever almost every


twenty-five yards along the Embankmenttwenty-five


yards being the recognised minimum between pitches.


Bozo contemptuously pointed out an old white-bearded


screever fifty yards away.



"You see that silly old fool? He's bin doing the same


picture every day for ten years. 'A faithful friend' he calls


it. It's of a dog pulling a child out of the water. The silly


old bastard can't draw any better than a child of ten. He's


learned just that one picture by rule of thumb, like you


learn to put a puzzle together. There's a lot of that sort


about here. They come pinching my ideas sometimes; but


I don't care; the silly s can't think of anything for


themselves, so I'm always ahead of them. The whole


thing with cartoons is being up to date. Once a child got


its head stuck in the railings of Chelsea Bridge. Well, I


heard about it, and my cartoon was on the pavement


before they'd got the child's head out of the railings.


Prompt, I am."



Bozo seemed an interesting man, and I was anxious to see


more of him. That evening I went down to the


Embankment to meet him, as he had arranged to take


Paddy and myself to a lodging-house south of the river.


Bozo washed his pictures off the pavement and counted


his takings-it was about sixteen shillings, of which he said


twelve or thirteen would be profit. We


walked down into Lambeth. Bozo limped slowly, with a


queer crablike gait, half sideways, dragging his smashed


foot behind him. He carried a stick in each hand and slung


his box of colours over his shoulder. As we were crossing


the bridge he stopped in one of the alcoves to rest. He fell


silent for a minute or two, and to my surprise I saw that he


was looking at the stars. He touched my arm and pointed


to the sky with his stick.



"Say, will you look at Aldebaran! Look at the colour.


Like a ------------


great blood orange!"



From the way he spoke he might have been an art critic


in a picture gallery. I was astonished. I confessed that I


did not know which Aldebaran was, indeed, I had never


even noticed that the stars were of different colours. Bozo


began to give me some elementary hints on astronomy,


pointing out the chief constellations. He seemed


concerned at my ignorance. I said to him, surprised:



"You seem to know a lot about stars."



"Not a great lot. I know a bit, though. I got two letters


from the Astronomer Royal thanking me for writing about


meteors. Now and again I go out at night and watch for


meteors. The stars are a free show; it don't cost anything


to use your eyes."



"What a good idea! I should never have thought of it."



"Well, you got to take an interest in something. It don't


follow that because a man's on the road he can't think of


anything but tea-and-two-slices."



"But isn't it very hard to take an interest in things-


things like stars-living this life?"



"Screeving, you mean? Not necessarily. It don't need


turn you into a bloody rabbit-that is, not if you set your


mind to it."



"It seems to have that effect on most people."



"Of course. Look at Paddy-a tea-swilling old moocher,


only fit to scrounge for fag-ends. That's the way most of


them go. I despise them. But you don't need to get like that.


If you've got any education, it don't matter to you if


you're on the road for the rest of your life."



"Well, I've found just the contrary," I said. "It seems to


me that when you take a man's money away he's fit for


nothing from that moment."



"No, not necessarily. If you set yourself to it, you can


live the same life, rich or poor. You 'can still keep on with


your books and your ideas. You just got to say to yourself,



'I'm a free man in here' "-he tapped his forehead-"and


you're all right."



Bozo talked further in the same strain, and I listened


with attention. He seemed a very unusual screever, and he


was, moreover, the first person I had heard maintain that


poverty did not matter. I saw a good deal of him during


the next few days, for several times it rained and he could


not work. He told me the history of his life, and it was a


curious one.



The son of a bankrupt bookseller, he had gone to work


as a house-painter at eighteen, and then served three years


in France and India during the war. After the war he had


found a house-painting job in Paris, and had stayed there


several years. France suited him better than England (he


despised the English), and he had been doing well in


Paris, saving money, and engaged to a French girl. One


day the girl was crushed to death under the wheels of an


omnibus. Bozo went on the drink for a week, and then


returned to work, rather shaky; the same morning he fell


from a stage on which he was working, forty feet on to the


pavement, and smashed his right foot to pulp. For some


reason he received only sixty pounds compensation. He


returned to England, spent his money in looking for jobs,


tried hawking books in Middlesex Street market, then


tried selling toys from a tray, and finally settled down as


a screever. He had lived hand to mouth ever since, half


starved throughout the winter, and often sleeping in the


spike or on the Embankment. When I knew him he


owned nothing but the clothes he stood up in, and his


drawing materials and a few books. The clothes were the


usual beggar's rags, but he wore a collar and tie, of


which he was rather proud. The collar, a year or more


old, was constantly "going" round the neck, and Bozo


used to patch it with bits cut from the tail of his shirt so


that the shirt had scarcely any tail left. His damaged leg


was getting worse and would probably have to be


amputated, and his knees, from kneeling on the stones,


had pads of skin on them as thick as boot-soles. There


was, clearly, no future for him but beggary and a death


in the workhouse.



With all this, he had neither fear, nor regret, nor


shame, nor self-pity. He had faced his position, and


made a philosophy for himself. Being a beggar, he said,


was not his fault, and he refused either to have any


compunction about it or to let it trouble him. He was the


enemy of society, and quite ready to take to crime if he


saw a good opportunity. He _ refused on principle to be


thrifty. In the summer he saved nothing, spending his


surplus earnings on drink, as he did not care about


women. If he was penniless when winter came on, then


society must look after him. He was ready to extract


every penny he could from charity, provided that he was


not expected to say thank you for it. He avoided


religious charities, however, for he said that it stuck in


his throat to sing hymns for buns.


He had various other points of honour; for instance, it


was his boast that never in his life, even when starving,


had he picked up a cigarette end. He considered himself


in a class above the ordinary run of beggars, who, he


said, were an abject lot, without even the decency to be


ungrateful.



He spoke French passably, and had read some of Zola's


novels, all Shakespeare's plays, Gulliver's Travels, and a


number of essays. He could describe his adventures in


words that one remembered. For instance, speaking of


funerals, he said to me:



"Have you ever seen a corpse burned? I have, in India.


They put the old chap on the fire, and the next moment I


almost jumped out of my skin, because he'd started


kicking. It was only his muscles contracting in the heat-


still, it give me a turn. Well, he wriggled about for a bit


like a kipper on hot coals, and then his belly blew up and


went off with a bang you could have heard fifty yards


away. It fair put me against cremation."



Or, again, apropos of his accident:



"The doctor says to me, 'You fell on one foot, my man.


And bloody lucky for you you didn't fall on both feet,' he


says. 'Because if you had of fallen on both feet you'd


have shut up like a bloody concertina, and your thigh


bones'd be sticking out of your ears!"



Clearly the phrase was not the doctor's but Bozo's


own. He had a gift for phrases. He had managed to keep


his brain intact and alert, and so nothing could make him


succumb to poverty. He might be ragged and cold, or even


starving, but so long as he could read, think and watch for


meteors, he was, as he said, free in his own mind.



He was an embittered atheist (the sort of atheist who


does not so much disbelieve in God as personally


dislike Him), and took a sort of pleasure in thinking that


human affairs would never improve. Sometimes, he said,


when sleeping on the Embankment, it had consoled him


to look up at Mars or Jupiter and think that there were


probably Embankment sleepers there. He had a curious


theory about this. Life on earth, he said, is harsh because


the planet is poor in the necessities of existence. Mars,


with its cold climate and scanty water, must be far


poorer, and life correspondingly harsher. Whereas on


earth you are merely imprisoned for stealing sixpence,


on Mars you are probably boiled alive. This thought


cheered Bozo, I do not know why. He was a very


exceptional man.




XXXI



THE charge at Bozo's lodging-house was ninepence a


night. It was a large, crowded place, with accommodation


for five hundred men, and a well-known rendezvous of


tramps, beggars and petty criminals. All races, even black


and white, mixed in it on terms of equality. There were


Indians there, and when I spoke to one of them in bad


Urdu he addressed me as "tum"-a thing to make one


shudder, if it had been in India. We had got below the


range of colour prejudice. One had glimpses of curious


lives. Old "Grandpa," a tramp of seventy who made his


living, or a great part of it, by collecting cigarette ends and


selling the tobacco at threepence an ounce. " The Doctor"-


he was a real doctor, who had been struck off the register


for some offence, and besides selling newspapers gave


medical advice at a few pence a time. A little Chittagonian


lascar, barefoot and starving, who had deserted his ship


and wandered for days through London, so


vague and helpless that he did not even know the name of


the city he was in-he thought it was Liverpool, until I told


him. A begging-letter writer, a friend of Bozo's, who


wrote pathetic appeals for aid to pay for his wife's funeral,


and, when a letter had taken effect, blew himself out with


huge solitary gorges of bread and margarine. He was a


nasty, hyena-like creature. I talked to him and found that,


like most swindlers, he believed a great part of his own


lies. The lodging-house was an Alsatia for types like


these.



While I was with Bozo he taught me something about


the technique of London begging. There is more in it than


one might suppose. Beggars vary greatly, and there is a


sharp social line between those who merely cadge and


those who attempt to give some value for money. The


amounts that one can earn by the different "gags" also


vary. The stories in the Sunday papers about beggars who


die with two thousand pounds sewn into their trousers are,


of course, lies; but the better-class beggars do have runs of


luck, when they earn a living wage for weeks at a time.


The most prosperous beggars are street acrobats and street


photographers. On a good pitch-a theatre queue, for


instance-a street acrobat will often earn five pounds a


week. Street photographers can earn about the same, but


they are dependent on fine weather. They have a cunning


dodge to stimulate trade. When they see a likely victim


approaching, one of them runs behind the camera and


pretends to take a photograph. Then as the victim reaches


them, they exclaim:



"There y'are, Sir, took yer photo lovely. That'll be a


bob."



"But I never asked you to take it," protests the victim.



"What, you didn't want it took? Why, we thought


you signalled with your 'and. Well, there's a plate wasted!


That's cost us sixpence, that 'as."



At this the victim usually takes pity and says he will


have the photo after all. The photographers examine the


plate and say that it is spoiled, and that they will take a


fresh one free of charge. Of course, they have not really


taken the first photo; and so, if the victim refuses, they


waste nothing.



Organ-grinders, like acrobats, are considered artists


rather than beggars. An organ-grinder named Shorty, a


friend of Bozo's, told me all about his trade. He and his


mate "worked" the coffee-shops and public-houses round


Whitechapel and the Commercial Road. It is a mistake to


think that organ-grinders earn their living in the street;


nine-tenths of their money is taken in coffee-shops and


pubs-only the cheap pubs, for they are not allowed into


the good-class ones. Shorty's procedure was to stop


outside a pub and play one tune, after which his mate,


who had a wooden leg and could excite compassion, went


in and passed round the hat. It was a point of honour


with Shorty always to play another tune after receiving


the "drop"an encore, as it were; the idea being that he


was a genuine entertainer and not merely paid to go


away. He and his mate took two or three pounds a week


between them, but, as they had to pay fifteen shillings a


week for the hire of the organ, they only averaged a


pound a week each. They were on the streets from eight


in the morning till ten at night, and later on Saturdays.



Screevers can sometimes be called artists, sometimes


not. Bozo introduced me to one who was a "real" artist-


that is, he had studied art in Paris and submitted


pictures to the Salon in his day. His line was copies of


Old Masters, which he did marvellously,


considering that he was drawing on stone. He told me


how he began as a screever:



"My wife and kids were starving. I was walking home


late at night, with a lot of drawings I'd been taking round


the dealers, and wondering how the devil to raise a bob


or two. Then, in the Strand, I saw a fellow kneeling on


the pavement drawing, and people giving him pennies. As


I came past he got up and went into a pub. 'Damn it,' I


thought, 'if he can make money at that, so can L' So on


the impulse I knelt down and began drawing with his


chalks. Heaven knows how I came to do it; I must have


been lightheaded with hunger. The curious thing was


that I'd never used pastels before; I had to learn the


technique as I went along. Well, people began to stop and


say that my drawing wasn't bad, and they gave me nine-


pence between them. At this moment the other fellow


came out of the pub. 'What in are you doing on my


pitch?' he said. I explained that I was hungry and had to


earn something. 'Oh,' said he, 'come and have a pint with


me.' So I had a pint, and since that day I've been a


screever. I make a pound a week. You can't keep six kids


on a pound a week, but luckily my wife earns a bit taking


in sewing.



"The worst thing in this life is the cold, and the next


worst is the interference you have to put up with. At


first, not knowing any better, I used sometimes to copy a


nude on the pavement. The first I did was outside St.


Martin's-in-the-Fields church. A fellow in blackI suppose


he was a churchwarden or somethingcame out in a


tearing rage. 'Do you think we can have that obscenity


outside God's holy house?' he cried. So I had to wash it


out. It was a copy of Botticelli's Venus. Another time I


copied the same picture on the Embankment. A


policeman passing looked at it, and


then, without a word, walked on to it and rubbed it out


with his great flat feet."



Bozo told the same tale of police interference. At the


time when I was with him there had been a case of


"immoral conduct" in Hyde Park, in which the police had


behaved rather badly. Bozo produced a cartoon of Hyde


Park with policemen concealed in the trees, and the


legend, "Puzzle, find the policemen." I pointed out to him


how much more telling it would be to put, "Puzzle, find


the immoral conduct," but Bozo would not hear of it. He


said that any policeman who saw it would move him on,


and he would lose his pitch for good.



Below screevers come the people who sing hymns, or


sell matches, or bootlaces, or envelopes containing a few


grains of lavender-called, euphemistically, perfume. All


these people are frankly beggars, exploiting an appearance


of misery, and none of them takes on an average more


than half a crown a day. The reason why they have to


pretend to sell matches and so forth instead of begging


outright is that this is demanded by the absurd English


laws about begging. As the law now stands, if you


approach a stranger and ask him for twopence, he can call


a policeman and get you seven days for begging. But if


you make the air hideous by droning "Nearer, my God, to


Thee," or scrawl some chalk daubs on the pavement, or


stand about with a tray of matches-in short, if you make a


nuisance of yourself-you are held to be following a


legitimate trade and not begging. Match-selling and street-


singing are simply legalised crimes. Not profitable crimes,


however; there is not a singer or match-seller in London


who can be sure of £5o a year-a poor return for standing


eighty-four hours a week on the kerb, with the cars


grazing your backside.



It is worth saying something about the social position


of beggars, for when one has consorted with them, and


found that they are ordinary human beings, one cannot


help being struck by the curious attitude that society


takes towards them. People seem to feel that there is


some essential difference between beggars and ordinary


"working" men. They are a race apart, outcasts, like


criminals and prostitutes. Working men "work," beggars


do not "work"; they are parasites, worthless in their very


nature. It is taken for granted that a beggar does not


"earn" his living, as a bricklayer or a literary critic


"earns" his. He is a mere social excrescence, tolerated


because we live in a humane age, but essentially


despicable.



Yet if one looks closely one sees that there is no



essential


difference between a beggar's livelihood and that


of numberless respectable people. Beggars do not work, it


is said; but, then, what is



work? A navvy works by


swinging a pick. An accountant works by adding up


figures. A beggar works by standing out of doors in all


weathers and getting varicose veins, chronic bronchitis,


etc. It is a trade like any other; quite useless, of course -


but, then, many reputable trades are quite useless. And as


a social type a beggar compares well with scores of others.


He is honest compared with the sellers of most patent


medicines, high-minded compared with a Sunday


newspaper proprietor, amiable compared with a hire-


purchase tout-in short, a parasite, but a fairly harmless


parasite. He seldom extracts more than a bare living from


the community, and, what should justify him according to


our ethical ideas, he pays for it over and over in suffering.


I do not think there is anything about a beggar that sets


him in a different class from other people, or gives most


modern men the right to despise him.




Then the question arises, Why are beggars despised? -


for they are despised, universally. I believe it is for the


simple reason that they fail to earn a decent living. In


practice nobody cares whether work is useful or useless,


productive or parasitic; the sole thing demanded is that it


shall be profitable. In all the modern talk about energy,


efficiency, social service and the rest of it, what meaning


is there except "Get money, get it legally, and get a lot of


it"? Money has become the grand test of virtue. By this


test beggars fail, and for this they are despised. If one


could earn even ten pounds a week at begging, it would


become a respectable profession immediately. A beggar,


looked at realistically, is simply a business man, getting


his living, like other business men, in the way that comes


to hand. He has not, more than most modern people, sold


his honour; he has merely made the mistake of choosing


a trade at which it is impossible to grow rich.




XXXII



I WANT to put in some notes, as short as possible, on


London slang and swearing. These (omitting the ones


that everyone knows) are some of the cant words now


used in London:



A gagger-beggar or street performer of any kind. A


moocher-one who begs outright, without pretence of


doing a trade. A nobbler-one who collects pennies for a


beggar. A chanter-a street singer. A clodhopper -a street


dancer. A mugfaker-a street photographer. A glimmer-


one who watches vacant motor-cars. A gee (or jee-it is


pronounced jee)-the accomplice of a cheapjack, who


stimulates trade by pretending to buy


something. A split-a detective. A flattie-a policeman. A


dideki-a gypsy. A toby-a tramp.



A drop-money given to a beggar. Funkumlavender or


other perfume sold in envelopes. A boozer -a public-


house. A slang-a hawker's licence. A kip -a place to


sleep in, or a night's lodging. SmokeLondon. A judy-a


woman. The spike-the casual ward. The lump-the casual


ward. A tosheroon-a half-crown. A denner-a shilling. A


hog-a shilling. A sprowsie-a sixpence. Clods-coppers. A


drum-a billy can. Shackles-soup. A chat-a louse. Hard-


up-tobacco made from cigarette ends. A stick or cane -a


burglar's jemmy. A peter-a safe. A bly-a burglar's oxy-


acetylene blow-lamp



To bawl-to suck or swallow. To knock off-to steal. To


skipper-to sleep in the open.



About half of these words are in the larger diction-


aries. It is interesting to guess at the derivation of some


of them, though one or two-for instance, "funkum" and


"tosheroon"-are beyond guessing. "Deaner" presumably


comes from "denier." "Glimmer" (with the verb "to


glim") may have something to do with the old word


"glim," meaning a light, or another old word "glim,"


meaning a glimpse; but it is an instance of the formation


of new words, for in its present sense it can hardly be


older than motor-cars. "Gee" is a curious word;


conceivably it has arisen out of "gee," meaning horse, in


the sense of stalking horse. The derivation of "screever"


is mysterious. It must come ultimately from scribo, but


there has been no similar word in English for the past


hundred and fifty years; nor can it have come directly


from the French, for pavement artists are unknown in


France. "Judy" and "bawl" are East End words, not


found west of Tower Bridge. "Smoke" is a word used


only by tramps. "Kip" is Danish. Till quite recently


the word "doss" was used in this sense, but it is now


quite obsolete.



London slang and dialect seem to change very


rapidly. The old London accent described by Dickens


and Surtees, with v for w and w for v and so forth, has


now vanished utterly. The Cockney accent as we know


it seems to have come up in the 'forties (it is first men-


tioned in an American book, Herman Melville's



White



Jacket


), and Cockney is already changing; there are few


people now who say "fice" for "face," "nawce" for


"nice" and so forth as consistently as they did twenty


years ago. The slang changes together with the accent.


Twenty-five or thirty years ago, for instance, the


"rhyming slang" was all the rage in London. In the


"rhyming slang" everything was named by something


rhyming with it-a "hit or miss" for a kiss, "plates of


meat" for feet, etc. It was so common that it was even


reproduced in novels; now it is almost extinct.' Perhaps


all the words I have mentioned above will have van-


ished in another twenty years.



The swear words also change-or, at any rate, they are


subject to fashions. For example, twenty years ago the


London working classes habitually used the word


"bloody." Now they have abandoned it utterly, though


novelists still represent them as using it. No born


Londoner (it is different with people of Scotch or Irish


origin) now says "bloody," unless he is a man of some


education. The word has, in fact, moved up in the social


scale and ceased to be a swear word for the purposes of


the working classes. The current London adjective, now


tacked on to every noun, is ---------


. No


doubt in time---, like "bloody," will find its way into



1 It survives in certain abbreviations, such as "use your


twopenny" or "use your head." "Twopenny" is arrived at like


this: head-loaf of bread-twopenny loaf-twopenny.



the drawing-room and be replaced by some other word.



The whole business of swearing, especially English


swearing, is mysterious. Of its very nature swearing is


as irrational as magic-indeed, it is a species of magic.


But there is also a paradox about it, namely this: Our


intention in swearing is to shock and wound, which we


do by mentioning something that should be kept secret -


usually something to do with the sexual functions. But


the strange thing is that when a word is well established


as a swear word, it seems to lose its original meaning;


that is, it loses the thing that made it into a swear word.


A word becomes an oath because it means a certain


thing, and, because it has become an oath, it ceases to


mean that thing. For example, ----. The Londoners do


not now use, or very seldom use, this word in its


original meaning; it is on their lips from morning till


night, but it is a mere expletive and means nothing.


Similarly with -------, which is rapidly losing its original


sense. One can think of similar instances in French-for


example,------,, which is now a quite meaningless


expletive. The word---


, also, is still used


occasionally in Paris, but the people who use it, or most


of them, have no idea of what it once meant. The rule


seems to be that words accepted as swear words have


some magical character, which sets them apart and


makes them useless for ordinary conversation.



Words used as insults seem to be governed by the


same paradox as swear words. A word becomes an


insult, one would suppose, because it means something


bad; but in practice its insult-value has little to do with


its actual meaning. For example, the most bitter insult


one can offer to a Londoner is "bastard"which, taken for


what it means, is hardly an insult at all. And the worst


insult to a women, either in London



or Paris, is "cow"; a name which might even be a com-


pliment, for cows are among the most likeable of animals.


Evidently a word is an insult simply because it is meant as


an insult, without reference to its dictionary meaning;


words, especially swear words, being what public opinion


chooses to make them. In this connection it is interesting


to see how a swear word can change character by crossing


a frontier. In England you can print «



Je m'en fous »


without protest from anybody. In France you have to print


it "



Je m'en f-----" Or, as another example,


take the word "barnshoot"a corruption of the Hindustani


word



bahinchut. A vile and unforgivable insult in India, this


word is a piece of gentle badinage in England. I have even


seen it in a school text-book; it was in one of


Aristophanes' plays, and the annotator suggested it as a


rendering of some gibberish spoken by a Persian


ambassador. Presumably the annotator knew what



bahinchut


meant. But, because it was a foreign word, it had


lost its magical swear-word quality and could be printed.



One other thing is noticeable about swearing in


London, and that is that the men do not usually swear in


front of the women. In Paris it is quite different. A


Parisian workman may prefer to suppress an oath in front


of a woman, but he is not at all scrupulous about it, and


the women themselves swear freely. The Londoners are


more polite, or more squeamish, in this matter.



These are a few notes that I have set down more or less


at random. It is a pity that someone capable of dealing


with the subject does not keep a year-book of London


slang and swearing, registering the changes accurately. It


might throw useful light upon the formation, development


and obsolescence of words.





XXXIII






THE two pounds that B. had given me lasted about ten


days. That it lasted so long was due to Paddy, who had


learned parsimony on the road and considered even one


sound meal a day a wild extravagance. Food, to him, had


come to mean simply bread and margarine -the eternal tea-


and-two-slices, which will cheat hunger for an hour or


two. He taught me how to live, food, bed, tobacco and all,


at the rate of half a crown a day. And he managed to earn


a few extra shillings by "glimming" in the evenings. It


was a precarious job, because illegal, but it brought in a


little and eked out our money.



One morning we tried for a job as sandwich men. We


went at five to an alley-way behind some offices, but there


was already a queue of thirty or forty men waiting, and


after two hours we were told that there was no work for


us. We had not missed much, for sandwich men have an


unenviable job. They are paid about three shillings a day


for ten hours' work-it is hard work, especially in windy


weather, and there is no skulking, for an inspector comes


round frequently to see that the men are on their beat. To


add to their troubles, they are only engaged by the day, or


sometimes for three days, never weekly, so that they have


to wait hours for their job every morning. The number of


unemployed men who are ready to do the work makes


them powerless to fight for better treatment. The job all


sandwich men covet is distributing, handbills, which is


paid for at the same rate. When you see a man distributing


handbills you can do him a good turn by taking one, for he


goes off duty when he has distributed all his bills.



Meanwhile we went on with the lodging-house life-


a squalid, eventless life of crushing boredom. For days


together there was nothing to do but sit in the under-


ground kitchen, reading yesterday's newspaper, or, when


one could get hold of it, a back number of the



Union Jack.


It rained a great deal at this time, and everyone who came


in steamed, so that the kitchen stank horribly. One's only


excitement was the periodical tea-and-two-slices. I do not


know how many men are living this life in London-it must


be thousands at the least. As to Paddy, it was actually the


best life he had known for two years past. His interludes


from tramping, the times when he had somehow laid


hands on a few shillings, had all been like this; the


tramping itself had been slightly worse. Listening to his


whimpering voice-he was always whimpering when he was


not eating-one realised what torture unemployment must


be to him. People are wrong when they think that an


unemployed man only worries about losing his wages; on


the contrary, 'an illiterate man, with the work habit in his


bones, needs work even more than he needs money. An


educated man can put up with enforced idleness, which is


one of the worst evils of poverty. But a man like Paddy,


with no means of filling up time, is as miserable out of


work as a dog on the chain. That is why it is such


nonsense to pretend that those who have "come down in


the world" are to be pitied above all others. The man who


really merits pity is the man who has been down from the


start, and faces poverty with a blank, resourceless mind.



It was a dull time, and little of it stays in my mind,


except for talks with Bozo. Once the lodging-house was


invaded by a slumming-party. Paddy and I had been out,


and, coming back in the afternoon, we heard sounds of


music downstairs. We went down to find


three gentle-people, sleekly dressed, holding a religious


service in our kitchen. They were a grave and reverend


seignior in a frock coat, a lady sitting at a portable


harmonium, and a chinless youth toying with a crucifix. It


appeared that they had marched in and started to hold


the service, without any kind of invitation whatever.



It was a pleasure to see how the lodgers met this


intrusion. They did not offer the smallest rudeness to the


slummers; they just ignored them. By common consent


everyone in the kitchen-a hundred men, perhaps behaved


as though the slummers had not existed. There they stood


patiently singing and exhorting, and no more notice was


taken of them than if they had been earwigs. The


gentleman in the frock coat preached a sermon, but not a


word of it was audible; it was drowned in the usual din of


songs, oaths and the clattering of pans. Men sat at their


meals and card games three feet away from the


harmonium, peaceably ignoring it. Presently the slummers


gave it up and cleared out, not insulted in any way, but


merely disregarded. No doubt they consoled themselves by


thinking how brave they had been, "freely venturing into


the lowest dens," etc. etc.



Bozo said that these people came to the lodginghouse


several times a month. They had influence with the police,


and the "deputy" could not exclude them. It is curious


how people take it for granted that they have a right to


preach at you and pray over you as soon as your income


falls below a certain level.



After nine days B.'s two pounds was reduced to one and


ninepence. Paddy and I set aside eighteenpence for our


beds, and spent threepence on the usual tea-andtwo-


slices, which we shared-an appetiser rather than a meal.


By the afternoon we were damnably hungry and


Paddy remembered a church near King's Cross Station


where a free tea was given once a week to tramps. This


was the day, and we decided to go there. Bozo, though it


was rainy weather and he was almost penniless, would not


come, saying that churches were not his style.



Outside the church quite a hundred men were waiting,


dirty types who had gathered from far and wide at the


news of a free tea, like kites round a dead buffalo.


Presently the doors opened and a clergyman and some


girls shepherded us into a gallery at the top of the church.


It was an evangelical church, gaunt and wilfully ugly, with


texts about blood and fire blazoned on the walls, and a


hymn-book containing twelve hundred and fifty-one


hymns; reading some of the hymns, I concluded that the


book would do as it stood for an anthology of bad verse.


There was to be a service after the tea, and the regular


congregation were sitting in the well of the church below.


It was a week-day, and there were only a few dozen of


them, mostly stringy old women who reminded one of


boilingfowls. We ranged ourselves in the gallery pews and


were given our tea; it was a one-pound jam jar of tea each,


with six slices of bread and margarine. As soon as tea was


over, a dozen tramps who had stationed themselves near


the door bolted to avoid the service; the rest stayed, less


from gratitude than lacking the cheek to go.



The organ let out a few preliminary hoots and the service


began. And instantly, as though at a signal, the tramps


began to misbehave in the most outrageous way. One


would not have thought such scenes possible in a church.


All round the gallery men lolled in their pews, laughed,


chattered, leaned over and flicked pellets of bread among


the congregation; I had to re


strain the man next to me, more or less by force, from


lighting a cigarette. The tramps treated the service as a


purely comic spectacle. It was, indeed, a sufficiently


ludicrous service-the kind where there are sudden yells of


"Hallelujah!" and endless extempore prayersbut their


behaviour passed all bounds. There was one old fellow in


the congregation-Brother Bootle or some such name-who


was often called on to lead us in prayer, and whenever he


stood up the tramps would begin stamping as though in a


theatre; they said that on a previous occasion he had kept


up an extempore prayer for twenty-five minutes, until the


minister had interrupted him. Once when Brother Bootle


stood up a tramp called out, "Two to one 'e don't beat


seven minutes!" so loud that the whole church must hear.


It was not long before we were making far more noise than


the minister. Sometimes somebody below would send up


an indignant "Hush!" but it made no impression. We had


set ourselves to guy the service, and there was no


stopping us.



It was a queer, rather disgusting scene. Below were the


handful of simple, well-meaning people, trying hard to


worship; and above were the hundred men whom they had


fed, deliberately making worship impossible. A ring of


dirty, hairy faces grinned down from the gallery, openly


jeering. What could a few women and old men do against a


hundred hostile tramps? They were afraid of us, and we


were frankly bullying them. It was our revenge upon them


for having humiliated us by feeding us.



The minister was a brave man. He thundered steadily


through a long sermon on Joshua, and managed almost to


ignore the sniggers and chattering from above. But in the


end, perhaps goaded beyond endurance, he announced


loudly:



"I shall address the last five minutes of my sermon to


the



unsaved sinners!"



Having said which, he turned his face to the gallery


and kept it so for five minutes, lest there should be any


doubt about who were saved and who unsaved. But much


we cared! Even while the minister was threatening hell


fire, we were rolling cigarettes, and at the last amen we


clattered down the stairs with a yell, many agreeing to


come back for another free tea next week.



The scene had interested me. It was so different from


the ordinary demeanour of tramps-from the abject worm-


like gratitude with which they normally accept charity.


The explanation, of course, was that we outnumbered the


congregation and so were not afraid of them. A man


receiving charity practically always hates his benefactor-it


is a fixed characteristic of human nature; and, when he has


fifty or a hundred others to back him, he will show it.



In the evening, after the free tea, Paddy unexpectedly


earned another eighteenpence at "glimming." It was


exactly enough for another night's lodging, and we put it


aside and went hungry till nine the next evening. Bozo,


who might have given us some food, was away all day.


The pavements were wet, and he had gone to the Elephant


and Castle, where he knew of a pitch under shelter.


Luckily I still had some tobacco, so that the day might


have been worse.




At half-past eight Paddy took me to the Embankment,


where a clergyman was known to distribute meal tickets


once a week. Under Charing Cross Bridge fifty men were


waiting, mirrored in the shivering puddles. Some of them


were truly appalling specimens-they were Embankment


sleepers, and the Embankment dredges up worse types


than the spike. One of them, I


remember, was dressed in an overcoat without buttons,


laced up with rope, a pair of ragged trousers, and boots


exposing his toes-not a rag else. He was bearded like a


fakir, and he had managed to streak his chest and


shoulders with some horrible black filth resembling train


oil. What one could see of his face under the dirt and hair


was bleached white as paper by some malignant disease. I


heard him speak, and he had a goodish accent, as of a


clerk or shopwalker.



Presently the clergyman appeared and the men ranged


themselves in a queue in the order in which they had


arrived. The clergyman was a nice, chubby, youngish


man, and, curiously enough, very like Charlie, my friend


in Paris. He was shy and embarrassed, and did not speak


except for a brief good evening; he simply hurried down


the line of men, thrusting a ticket upon each, and not


waiting to be thanked. The consequence was that, for


once, there was genuine gratitude, and everyone said that


the clergyman was a good feller. Someone (in his hearing,


I believe) called out: "Well,



he'll never be a-----bishop!"-


this, of course, intended as a warm compliment.



The tickets were worth sixpence each, and were


directed to an eating-house not far away. When we got


there we found that the proprietor, knowing that the


tramps could not go elsewhere, was cheating by only


giving four pennyworth of food for each ticket. Paddy and


I pooled our tickets, and received food which we could


have got for sevenpence or eightpence at most coffee-


shops. The clergyman had distributed well over a pound in


tickets, so that the proprietor was evidently swindling the


tramps to the tune of seven shillings or more a week. This


kind of victimisation is a regular part of a tramp's life, and


it will go on as long as people continue to give meal tickets


instead of money.



Paddy and I went back to the lodging-house and, still


hungry, loafed in the kitchen, making the warmth of the


fire a substitute for food. At half-past ten Bozo arrived,


tired out and haggard, for his mangled leg made walking


an agony. He had not earned a penny at screening, all the


pitches under shelter being taken, and for several hours he


had begged outright, with one eye on the policemen. He


had amassed eightpence -a penny short of his kip. It was


long past the hour for paying, and he had only managed to


slip indoors when the deputy was not looking; at any


moment he might be caught and turned out, to sleep on the


Embankment. Bozo took the things out of his pockets and


looked them over, debating what to sell. He decided on his


razor, took it round the kitchen, and in a few minutes he


had sold it for threepence-enough to pay his kip, buy a


basin of tea, and leave a halfpenny over.



Bozo got his basin of tea and sat down by the fire to


dry his clothes. As he drank the tea I saw that he was


laughing to himself, as though at some good joke.


Surprised, I asked him what he had to laugh at.



"It's bloody funny!" he said. "It's funny enough for



Punch


. What do you think I been and done?"



"What?"



"Sold my razor without having a shave first: Of all


the fools!"



He had not eaten since the morning, had walked several


miles with a twisted leg, his clothes were drenched, and he


had a halfpenny between himself and starvation. With all


this, he could laugh over the loss of his razor. One could


not help admiring him.





XXXIV





THE next morning, our money being at an end, Paddy and


I set out for the spike. We went southward by the Old


Kent Road, making for Cromley; we could not go to a


London spike, for Paddy had been in one recently and did


not care to risk going again. It was a sixteen-mile walk


over asphalt, blistering to the heels, and we were acutely


hungry. Paddy browsed the pavement, laying up a store of


cigarette ends against his time in the spike. In the end his


perseverance was rewarded, for he picked up a penny. We


bought a large piece of stale bread, and devoured it as we


walked.



When we got to Cromley, it was too early to go the


spike, and we walked several miles farther, to a plantation


beside a meadow, where one could sit down. It was a


regular caravanserai of tramps-one could tell it by the


worn grass and the sodden newspaper and rusty cans that


they had left behind. Other tramps were arriving by ones


and twos. It was jolly autumn weather. Near by, a deep


bed of tansies was growing; it seems to me that even now


I can smell the sharp reek of those tansies, warring with


the reek of tramps. In the meadow two carthorse colts, raw


sienna colour with white manes and tails, were nibbling at


a gate. We sprawled about on the ground, sweaty and ex-


hausted. Someone managed to find dry sticks and get a


fire going, and we all had milkless tea out of a tin "drum"


which was passed round.



Some of the tramps began telling stories. One of them,


Bill, was an interesting type, a genuine sturdy beggar of


the old breed, strong as Hercules and a frank foe of work.


He boasted that with his great strength he


could get a navvying job any time he liked, but as soon as


he drew his first week's wages he went on a terrific drunk


and was sacked. Between whiles he "mooched," chiefly


from shopkeepers. He talked like this:



"I ain't goin' far in ---Kent. Kent's a tight county,


Kent is. There's too many bin' moochin' about 'ere. The


---bakers get so as they'll throw


their bread away sooner'n give it you. Now Oxford, that's


the place for moochin', Oxford is. When I was in Oxford I


mooched bread, and I mooched bacon, and I mooched


beef, and every night I mooched tanners for my kip off of


the students. The last night I was twopence short of my


kip, so I goes up to a parson and mooches 'im for


threepence. He give me threepence, and the next moment


he turns round and gives me in charge for beggin'. 'You


bin beggin',' the copper says. 'No I ain't,' I says, 'I was


askin' the gentlemen the time,' I says. The copper starts


feelin' inside my coat, and he pulls out a pound of meat


and two loaves of bread. 'Well, what's all this, then?' he


says. 'You better come 'long to the station,' he says. The


beak give me seven days. I don't mooch from no more


---parsons. But Christ! what do I


care for a lay-up of seven days?" etc. etc.



It seemed that his whole life was this-a round of


mooching, drunks and lay-ups. He laughed as he talked of


it, taking it all for a tremendous joke. He looked as though


he made a poor thing out of begging, for he wore only a


corduroy suit, scarf and capno socks or linen. Still, he was


fat and jolly, and he even smelt of beer, a most unusual


smell in a tramp nowadays.



Two of the tramps had been in Cromley spike recently,


and they told a ghost story connected with it. Years


earlier, they said, there had been a suicide there.


A tramp had managed to smuggle a razor into his cell, and


there cut his throat. In the morning, when the Tramp


Major came round, the body was jammed against the door,


and to open it they had to break the dead man's arm. In


revenge for this, the dead man haunted his cell, and


anyone who slept there was certain to die within the year;


there were copious instances, of course. If a cell door


stuck when you tried to open it, you should avoid that cell


like the plague, for it was the haunted one.



Two tramps, ex-sailors, told another grisly story. A


man (they swore they had known him) had planned to


stow away on a boat bound for Chile. It was laden with


manufactured goods packed in big wooden crates, and


with the help of a docker the stowaway had managed to


hide himself in one of these. But the docker had made a


mistake about the order in which the crates were to be


loaded. The crane gripped the stowaway, swung him aloft,


and deposited him-at the very bottom of the hold, beneath


hundreds of crates. No one discovered what had happened


until the end of the voyage, when they found the


stowaway rotting, dead of suffocation.



Another tramp told the story of Gilderoy, the Scottish


robber. Gilderoy was the man who was condemned to be


hanged, escaped, captured the judge who had sentenced


him, and (splendid fellow!) hanged him. The tramps liked


the story, of course, but the interesting thing was to see


that they had got it all wrong. Their version was that


Gilderoy escaped to America, whereas in reality he was


recaptured and put to death. The story had been amended,


no doubt deliberately; just as children amend the stories of


Samson and Robin Hood, giving them happy endings


which are quite imaginary.



This set the tramps talking about history, and a very


old man declared that the "one bite law" was a survival


from days when the nobles hunted men instead of deer.


Some of the others laughed at him, but he had the idea


firm in his head. He had heard, too, of the Corn Laws,


and the



jus primae noctis (he believed it had really


existed); also of the Great Rebellion, which he thought


was a rebellion of poor against rich-perhaps he had got it


mixed up with the peasant rebellions. I doubt whether


the old man could read, and certainly he was not


repeating newspaper articles. His scraps of history had


been passed from generation to generation of tramps,


perhaps for centuries in some cases. It was oral tradition


lingering on, like a faint echo from the Middle Ages.



Paddy and I went to the spike at six in the evening,


getting out at ten in the morning. It was much like


Romton and Edbury, and we saw nothing of the ghost.


Among the casuals were two young men named William


and Fred, ex-fishermen from Norfolk, a lively pair and


fond of singing. They had a song called "Unhappy Bella"


that is worth writing down. I heard them sing it half a


dozen times during the next two days, and I managed to


get it by heart, except a line or two which I have guessed.


It ran:




Bella was young and Bella was fair With



bright blue eyes and golden hair, O



unhappy Bella!



Her step was light and her heart was gay, But



she had no sense, and one fine day She got



herself put in the family way



By a wicked, heartless, cruel deceiver.




Poor Bella was young, she didn't believe That



the world is hard and men deceive, 0 unhappy



Bella!



She said, "My man will do what's just, He'll



marry me now, because he must"; Her heart



was full of loving trust



In a wicked, heartless, cruel deceiver.




She went to his house; that dirty skunk Had



packed his bags and done a bunk, O unhappy



Bella!



Her landlady said, "Get out, you whore,



I won't have your sort a-darkening my door." Poor



Bella was put to affliction sore




By a wicked, heartless, cruel deceiver.




All night she tramped the cruel snows, What she



must have suffered nobody knows, O unhappy



Bella!



And when the morning dawned so red, Alas,



alas, poor Bella was dead,



Sent so young to her lonely bed



By a wicked, heartless, cruel deceiver.




So thus, you see, do what you will, The



fruits of sin are suffering still, O unhappy



Bella!



As into the grave they laid her low, The men



said, "Alas, but life is so," But the women



chanted, sweet and low, "It's all the men, the



dirty bastards!"




Written by a woman, perhaps.



William and Fred, the singers of this song, were


thorough scallywags, the sort of men who get tramps a


bad name. They happened to know that the Tramp Major


at Cromley had a stock of old clothes, which were to be


given at need to casuals. Before going in William and


Fred took off their boots, ripped the seams and cut


pieces off the soles, more or less ruining them. Then they


applied for two pairs of boots, and the Tramp Major,


seeing how bad their boots were, gave them almost new


pairs. William and Fred were scarcely


outside the spike in the morning before they had sold


these boots for one and ninepence. It seemed to them


quite worth while, for one and ninepence, to make their


own boots practically unwearable.



Leaving the spike, we all started southward, a long


slouching procession, for Lower Binfield and Ide Hill. On


the way there was a fight between two of the tramps.


They had quarrelled overnight (there was some silly



casus



belli


about one saying to the other, "Bull shit," which was


taken for Bolshevik-a deadly insult), and they fought it


out in a field. A dozen of us stayed to watch them. The


scene sticks in my mind for one thing -the man who was


beaten going down, and his cap falling off and showing


that his hair was quite white. After that some of us


intervened and stopped the fight. Paddy had meanwhile


been making inquiries, and found that the real cause of


the quarrel was, as usual, a few pennyworth of food.



We got to Lower Binfield quite early, and Paddy filled


in the time by asking for work at back doors. At one


house he was given some boxes to chop up for firewood,


and, saying he had a mate outside, he brought me in and


we did the work together. When it was done the


householder told the maid to take us out a cup of tea. I


remember the terrified way in which she brought it out,


and then, losing her courage, set the cups down on the


path and bolted back to the house, shutting herself in


the kitchen. So dreadful is the name of "tramp." They


paid us sixpence each, and we bought a threepenny loaf


and half an ounce of tobacco, leaving fivepence.



Paddy thought it wiser to bury our fivepence, for the


Tramp Major at Lower Binfield was renowned as a tyrant


and might refuse to admit us if we had any money at all.


It is quite a common practice of tramps


to' bury their money. If they intend to smuggle at ah a


large sum into the spike they generally sew it into their


clothes, which may mean prison if they are caught, of


course. Paddy and Bozo used to tell a good story about


this. An Irishman (Bozo said it was an Irishman; Paddy


said an Englishman), not a tramp, and in possession of


thirty pounds, was stranded in a small village where-he


could not get a bed. He consulted a tramp, who advised


him to go to the workhouse. It is quite a


regular proceeding, if one cannot get a bed elsewhere, to


get one at the workhouse, paying a reasonable sum for it.


The Irishman, however, thought he would be clever and


get a bed for nothing, so he presented himself at the


workhouse as an ordinary casual. He had sewn the thirty


pounds into his clothes. Meanwhile the tramp who had


advised him had seen his chance, and that night he


privately asked the Tramp Major for permission to leave


the spike early in the morning, as he had to see about a


job. At six in the morning he was released, and went out-


in the Irishman's clothes. The Irishman complained of


the theft, and was given thirty days for going into a


casual ward under false pretences.




XXXV



ARRIVED at Lower Binfield, we sprawled for a long time


on the green, watched by cottagers from their front gates.


A clergyman and his daughter came and stared silently


at us for a while, as though we had been aquarium


fishes, and then went away again. There were several


dozen of us waiting. William and Fred were there, still


singing, and the men who had fought, and Bill the


moocher. He had been mooching from bakers, and had


quantities of stale bread tucked away between


his coat and his bare body. He shared it out, and we were


all glad of it. There was a woman among us, the first


woman tramp I had ever seen. She was a fattish,


battered, very dirty woman of sixty, in a long, trailing


black skirt. She put on great airs of dignity, and if any-


one sat down near her she sniffed and moved farther off.



"Where you bound for, missis?" one of the tramps


called to her.



The woman sniffed and looked into the distance.



"Come on, missis," he said, "cheer up. Be chummy.


We're all in the same boat 'ere."



"Thank you," said the woman bitterly, "when I want to


get mixed up with a set of



tramps, I'll let you know."



I enjoyed the way she said



tramps. It seemed to show you


in a flash the whole of her soul; a small, blinkered,


feminine soul, that had learned absolutely nothing from


years on the road. She was, no doubt, a respectable widow


woman, become a tramp through some grotesque accident.



The spike opened at six. This was Saturday, and we were


to be confined over the week-end, which is the usual


practice; why, I do not know, unless it is from a vague


feeling that Sunday merits something disagreeable.


When we registered I gave my trade as "journalist." It


was truer than "painter," for I had sometimes earned


money from newspaper articles, but it was a silly thing


to say, being bound to lead to questions. As soon as we


were inside the spike and had been lined up for the


search, the Tramp Major called my name. He was a stiff,


soldierly man of forty, not looking the bully he had been


represented, but with an old soldier's gruffness. He said


sharply:



"Which of you is Blank?" (I forget what name I had


given.)



"Me, sir."



"So you are a journalist?"



"Yes, Sir," I said, quaking. A few questions would


betray the fact that I had been lying, which might mean


prison. But the Tramp Major only looked me up and down


and said:



"Then you are a gentleman?" "I suppose so."



He gave me another long look. "Well, that's bloody bad


luck, guv'nor," he said; "bloody bad luck that is." And


thereafter he treated me with unfair favouritism, and even


with a kind of deference. He did not search me, and in the


bathroom he actually gave me a clean towel to myself-an


unheard-of luxury. So powerful is the word "gentleman"


in an old soldier's ear.



By seven we had wolfed our bread and tea and were in our


cells. We slept one in a cell, and there were bedsteads and


straw palliasses, so that one ought to have had a good


night's sleep. But no spike is perfect, and the peculiar


shortcoming at Lower Binfield was the cold. The hot pipes


were not working, and the two blankets we had been given


were thin cotton things and almost useless. It was only


autumn, but the cold was bitter. One spent the long


twelve-hour night in turning from side to side, falling


asleep for a few minutes and waking up shivering. We


could not smoke, for our tobacco, which we had managed


to smuggle in, was in our clothes and we should not get


these back till the morning. All down the passage one


could hear groaning noises, and sometimes a shouted oath.


No one, I imagine, got more than an hour or two of sleep.



In the morning, after breakfast and the doctor's inspection,


the Tramp Major herded us all into the dining-room and


locked the door upon us. It was a


limewashed, stone-floored room, unutterably dreary, with


its furniture of deal boards and benches, and its prison


smell. The barred windows were too high to look out of,


and there were no ornaments save a clock and a copy of


the workhouse rules. Packed elbow to elbow on the


benches, we were bored already, though it was barely


eight in the morning. There was nothing to do, nothing to


talk about, not even room to move. The sole consolation


was that one could smoke, for smoking was connived at so


long as one was not caught in the act. Scotty, a little hairy


tramp with. a bastard accent sired by Cockney out of


Glasgow, was tobaccoless, his tin of cigarette ends having


fallen out of his boot during the search and been


impounded. I stood him the makings of a cigarette. We


smoked furtively, thrusting our cigarettes into our pockets,


like schoolboys, when we heard the Tramp Major coming.



Most of the tramps spent ten continuous hours in this


comfortless, soulless room. Heaven knows how they put


up with it. I was luckier than the others, for at ten o'clock


the Tramp Major told off a few men for odd jobs, and he


picked me out. to help in the workhouse kitchen, the most


coveted job of all. This, like the clean towel, was a charm


worked by the word "gentleman."



There was no work to do in the kitchen, and I sneaked


off into a small shed used for storing potatoes, where


some workhouse paupers were skulking to avoid the


Sunday morning service. There were comfortable packing-


cases to sit on, and some back numbers of the



Family



Herald


, and even a copy of



Raffles from the workhouse


library. The paupers talked interestingly about workhouse


life. They told me, among other things, that the thing


really hated in the workhouse, as a stigma of charity, is


the uniform; if the men could


wear, their own clothes, or even their own caps and


scarves, they would not mind being paupers. I had my


dinner from the workhouse table, and it was a meal fit for


a boa-constrictor-the largest meal I had 'eaten since my


first day at the Hôtel X. The paupers said that they


habitually gorged to the bursting-point on Sunday and


were underfed the rest of the week. After dinner the cook


set me to do the washing up, and told me to throw away


the food that remained. The wastage was astonishing and,


in the circumstances, appalling. Half-eaten joints of meat,


and bucketfuls of broken bread and vegetables, were


pitched away like so much rubbish and then defiled with


tea-leaves. I filled five dustbins to overflowing with quite


eatable food. And while I did so fifty tramps were sitting


in the spike with their bellies half filled by the spike


dinner of bread and cheese, and perhaps two cold boiled


potatoes each in honour of Sunday. According to the


paupers, the food was thrown away from deliberate policy,


rather than that it should be given to the tramps.



At three I went back to the spike. The tramps had


been sitting there since eight, with hardly room to move


an elbow, and they were now half mad with boredom.


Even smoking was at an end, for a tramp's tobacco is


picked-up cigarette ends, and he starves if he is more


than a few hours away from the pavement. Most of the


men were too bored even to talk; they just sat packed on


the benches, staring at nothing, their scrubby faces split


in two by enormous yawns. The room stank of



ennui.



Paddy, his backside aching from the hard bench, was


in a whimpering mood, and to pass the time away I


talked with a rather superior tramp, a young carpenter


who wore a collar and tie and was on the



road, he said, for lack of a set of tools. He kept a little


aloof from the other tramps, and held himself more like a


free man than a casual. He had literary tastes, too, and


carried a copy of



Quentin Durward in his pocket. He told


me that he never went into a spike unless driven there by


hunger, sleeping under hedges and behind ricks in


preference. Along the south coast he had begged by day


and slept in bathing-huts for weeks at a time.



We talked of life on the road. He criticised the


system that makes a tramp spend fourteen hours a day


in the spike, and the other ten in walking and dodging


the police. He spoke of his own case-six months at the


public charge for want of a few pounds' worth of tools.


It was idiotic, he said.



Then I told him about the wastage of food in the


workhouse kitchen, and what I thought of it. And at that


he changed his tone instantly. I saw that I had awakened


the pew-renter who sleeps in every English workman.


Though he had been famished along with the others, he


at once saw reasons why the food should have been


thrown away rather than given to the tramps. He


admonished me quite severely.



"They have to do it," he said. "If they made these


places too comfortable, you'd have all the scum of the


country flocking into them. It's only the bad food as


keeps all that scum away. These here tramps are too


lazy to work, that's all that's wrong with them. You


don't want to go encouraging of them. They're scum."




I produced, arguments to prove him wrong, but he


would not listen. He kept repeating:



"You don't want to have any pity on these here


tramps-scum, they are. You don't want to judge them


by the same standards as men like you and me. They're


scum, just Scum."



It was interesting to see the subtle way in which he


disassociated himself from "these here tramps." He had


been on the road six months, but in the sight of God, he


seemed to imply, he was not a tramp. I imagine there are


quite a lot of tramps who thank God they are not tramps.


They are like the trippers who say such cutting things


about trippers.



Three hours dragged by. At six supper arrived, and


turned out to be quite uneatable; the bread, tough enough


in the morning (it had been cut into slices on Saturday


night), was now as hard as ship's biscuit. Luckily it was


spread with dripping, and we scraped the dripping off and


ate that alone, which was better than nothing. At a quarter-


past six we were sent to bed. New tramps were arriving,


and in order not to mix the tramps of different days (for


fear of infectious diseases) the new men were put in the


cells and we in dormitories. Our dormitory was a barn-like


room with thirty beds close together, and a tub to serve as


a common chamber-pot. It stank abominably, and the


older men coughed and got up all night. But being so


many together kept the room warm, and we had some


sleep.



We dispersed at ten in the morning, after a fresh


medical inspection, with a hunk of bread and cheese for


our midday dinner. William and Fred, strong in the


possession of a shilling, impaled their bread on the spike


railings-as a protest, they said. This was the second spike


in Kent that they had made too hot to hold them, and


they thought it a great joke. They were cheerful souls,


for tramps. The imbecile (there is an imbecile in every


collection of tramps) said that he was too tired to walk


and clung to the railings, until the Tramp Major had to


dislodge him and start him with a kick, Paddy and I


turned north, for London.


Most of the others were going on to Ide Hill, said to be


about the worst spike in England.'



Once again it was jolly autumn weather, and the road


was quiet, with few cars passing. The air was like sweet-


briar after the spike's mingled stenches of sweat, soap


and drains. We two seemed the only tramps on the road.


Then I heard a hurried step behind us, and someone


calling. It was little Scotty, the Glasgow tramp, who had


run after us panting. He produced a rusty tin from his


'pocket. He wore a friendly smile, like someone repaying


an obligation.



"Here y'are, mate," he said cordially. "I owe you some


fag ends. You stood me a smoke yesterday. The Tramp


Major give me back my box of fag ends when we come


out this morning. One good turn deserves another-here


y'are."



And he put four sodden, debauched, loathly cigarette


ends into my hand.




XXXVI



I WANT to set down some general remarks about


tramps. When one comes to think of it, tramps are a


queer product and worth thinking over. It is queer that a


tribe of men, tens of thousands in number, should be


marching up and down England like so many Wandering


Jews. But though the case obviously wants considering,


one cannot even start to consider it until one has got rid


of certain prejudices. These prejudices are rooted in the


idea that every tramp,



ipso facto, is a blackguard. In


childhood we have been taught that tramps are


blackguards, and consequently there exists in our minds a


sort of ideal or typical tramp -a repulsive, rather


dangerous creature, who would





1 I have been in it since, and it is not so bad.




die rather than work or wash, and wants nothing but to


beg, drink and rob hen-houses. This tramp-monster is


no truer to life than the sinister Chinaman of the


magazine stories, but he is very hard to get rid of. The


very word "tramp" evokes his image. And the belief in


him obscures the real questions of vagrancy.



To take a fundamental question about vagrancy: Why do


tramps exist at all? It is a curious thing, but very few


people know what makes a tramp take to the road. And,


because of the belief in the tramp-monster, the most


fantastic reasons are suggested. It is said, for instance,


that tramps tramp to avoid work, to beg more easily, to


seek opportunities for crime, even-least probable of


reasons-because they like tramping. I have even read in a


book of criminology that the tramp is an atavism, a


throw-back to the nomadic stage of humanity. And


meanwhile the quite obvious cause of vagrancy is staring


one in the face. Of course a tramp is not a nomadic


atavism-one might as well say that a commercial traveller


is an atavism. A tramp tramps, not because he likes it,


but for the same reason as a car keeps to the left;


because there happens to be a law compelling him to do


so. A destitute man, if he is not supported by the parish,


can only get relief at the casual wards, and as each casual


ward will only admit him for one night, he is


automatically kept moving. He is a vagrant because, in


the state of the law, it is that or starve. But people have


been brought up to believe in the tramp-monster, and


so they prefer to think that there must be some more or


less villainous motive for tramping.



As a matter of fact, very little of the tramp-monster


will survive inquiry. Take the generally accepted idea


that tramps are dangerous characters. Quite apart from


experience, one can say



a priori that very few



tramps are dangerous, because if they were dangerous they


would be treated accordingly. A casual ward will often


admit a hundred, tramps in one night, and these are


handled by a staff of at most three porters. A hundred


ruffians could not be controlled by three unarmed men.


Indeed, when one sees how tramps let themselves be


bullied by the workhouse officials, it is obvious that they


are the most docile, broken-spirited creatures imaginable.


Or take the idea that all tramps are drunkards-an idea


ridiculous on the face of it. No doubt many tramps would


drink if they got the chance, but in the nature of things


they cannot- get the chance. At this moment a pale watery


stuff called beer is sevenpence a pint in England. To be


drunk on it would cost at least half a crown, and a man


who can command half a crown at all often is not a tramp.


The idea that tramps are impudent social parasites


("sturdy beggars") is not absolutely unfounded, but it is


only true in a few per cent. of the cases. Deliberate,


cynical parasitism, such as one reads of in Jack London's


books on American tramping, is not in the English


character. The English are a conscience-ridden race, with


a strong sense of the sinfulness of poverty. One cannot


imagine the average Englishman deliberately turning


parasite, and this national character does not necessarily


change because a man is thrown out of work. Indeed, if


one remembers that a tramp is only an Englishman out of


work, forced by law to live as a vagabond, then the tramp-


monster vanishes. I am not saying, of course, that most


tramps are ideal characters; I am only saying that they are


ordinary human beings, and that if they are worse than


other people it is the result and not the cause of their way


of life.



It follows that the "Serve them damned well right"


attitude that is normally taken towards tramps is no


fairer than it would be towards cripples or invalids. When


one has realised that, one begins to put oneself in a


tramp's place and understand what his life is like. It is an


extraordinarily futile, acutely unpleasant life. I have


described the casual ward-the routine of a tramp's day-but


there are three especial evils that need insisting upon. The


first is hunger, which is the almost general fate of tramps.


The casual ward gives them a ration which is probably not


even meant to be sufficient, and anything beyond this


must be got by begging-that is, by breaking the law: The


result is that nearly every tramp is rotted by malnutrition;


for proof of which one need only look at the men lining up


outside any casual ward. The second great evil of a


tramp's life-it seems much smaller at first sight, but it is a


good second-is that he is entirely cut off from contact with


women. This point needs elaborating.



Tramps are cut off from women, in the first place,


because there Are very few women at their level of


society. One might imagine that among destitute people


the sexes would be as equally balanced as elsewhere. But


it is not so; in fact, one can almost say that below a certain


level society is entirely male. The following figures,


published by the L.C.C. from a night census taken on


February 13th, 1931, will show the relative numbers of


destitute men and destitute women:



Spending the night in the streets, 6o men, 18 women.'


In shelters and homes not licensed as common lodging-houses,


1,057 men, 137 women.


In the crypt of St. Martin's-in-the-Fields Church, 88 men, 12


women.


In L.C.C. casual wards and hostels, 674 men, 15 women.



It will be seen from these figures that at the charity




1 This must be an underestimate. Still, the proportions probably


hold good.





level men outnumber women by something like ten to


one. The cause is presumably that unemployment affects


women less than men; also that any presentable woman


can, in the last resort, attach herself to some man. The


result, for a tramp, is that he is condemned to perpetual


celibacy. For of course it goes without saying that if a


tramp finds no women at his own level, those above-


even a very little above-are as far out of his reach as the


moon. The reasons are not worth discussing, but there


is no doubt that women never, or hardly ever,


condescend to men who are much poorer than


themselves. A tramp, therefore, is a celibate from the


moment when he takes to the road. He is absolutely


without hope of getting a wife, a mistress, or any kind of


woman except-very rarely, when he can raise a few


shillings-a prostitute.



It is obvious what the results of this must be: homo-


sexuality, for instance, and occasional rape cases. But


deeper than these there is the degradation worked in man


who knows that he is not even considered fit for


marriage. The sexual impulse, not to put it any higher, is a


fundamental impulse, and starvation of it can be almost as


demoralising as physical hunger. The evil of poverty is not


so much that it makes a man suffer as that it rots him


physically and spiritually. And there can be no doubt that


sexual starvation contributes to this rotting process. Cut


off from the whole race of women, a tramp feels himself


degraded to the rank of a cripple or a lunatic. No


humiliation could do more damage to a man's self-


respect.



The other great evil of a tramp's life is enforced idleness.


By our vagrancy laws things are so arranged that when he


is not walking the road he is sitting in a cell; or, in the


intervals, lying on the ground waiting for the casual ward


to open. It is obvious that this is a dismal,


demoralising way of life, especially for an uneducated


man.



Besides these one could enumerate scores of minor


evils-to name only one, discomfort, which is inseparable


from life on the road; it is worth remembering that the


average tramp has no clothes but what he stands up in,


wears boots that are ill-fitting, and does not sit in a chair


for months together. But the important point is that a


tramp's sufferings are entirely useless. He lives a


fantastically disagreeable life, and lives it to no purpose


whatever. One could not, in fact invent a more futile


routine than walking from prison to prison, spending


perhaps eighteen hours a day in the cell and on the road.


There must be at the least several tens of thousands of


tramps in England. Each day they expend innumerable


foot-pounds of energy-enough to plough thousands of


acres, build miles of road, put up dozens of houses-in


mere, useless walking. Each day they waste between them


possibly ten years of time in staring at cell walls. They cost


the country at least a pound a week a man, and give


nothing in return for it. They go round and round, on an


endless boring game of general post, which is of no use,


and is not even meant to be of any use to any person


whatever. The law keeps this process going, and we have


got so accustomed to it that we are not surprised. But it is


very silly.



Granting the futility of a tramp's life, the question is


whether anything could be done to improve it. Obviously


it would be possible, for instance, to make the casual


wards a little more habitable, and this is actually being


done in some cases. During the last year some of the


casual wards have been improved-beyond recognition, if


the accounts are true-and there is talk of doing the same


to all of them. But this does not go to the heart of the


problem. The problem is how to turn


the tramp from a bored, half alive vagrant into a self-


respecting human being. A mere increase of comfort


cannot do this. Even if the casual wards became positively


luxurious (they never will)' a tramp's life would still be


wasted. He would still be a pauper, cut off from marriage


and home life, and a dead loss to the community. What is


needed is to depauperise him, and this can only be done by


finding him work-not work for the sake of working, but


work of which he can enjoy the benefit. At present, in the


great majority of casual wards, tramps do no work


whatever. At one time they were made to break stones for


their food, but this was stopped when they had broken


enough stone for years ahead and put the stone-breakers


out of work. Nowadays they are kept idle, because there is


seemingly nothing for them to do. Yet there is a fairly


obvious way of making them useful, namely this: Each


workhouse could run a small farm, or at least a kitchen


garden, and every able-bodied tramp who presented


himself could be made to do a sound day's work. The


produce of the farm or garden could be used for feeding


the tramps, and at the worst it would be better than the


filthy diet of bread and margarine and tea. Of course, the


casual wards could never be quite selfsupporting, but they


could go a long way towards it, and the rates would


probably benefit in the long run. It must be remembered


that under the present system tramps are as dead a loss to


the country as they could possibly be, for they do not only


do no work, but they live on a diet that is bound to


undermine their health; the system, therefore, loses lives


as well as money. A



1 In fairness it must be added that a few of the casual wards have been


improved recently, at least from the point of view of sleeping


accommodation. But most of them are the same as ever, and there has


been no real improvement in the food.




scheme which fed them decently, and made them produce


at least a part of their own food, would be worth trying.



It may be objected that a farm or even a garden could


not be run with casual labour. But there is no real reason


why tramps should only stay a day at each casual ward;


they might stay a month or even a year, if there were work


for them to do. The constant circulation of tramps is


something quite artificial. At present a tramp is an


expense to the rates, and the object of each workhouse is


therefore to push him on to the next; hence the rule that he


can stay only one night. If he returns within a month he is


penalised by being confined for a week, and, as this is


much the same as being in prison, naturally he keeps


moving. But if he represented labour to the workhouse,


and the workhouse represented sound food to him, it


would be another matter. The workhouses would develop


into partially self-supporting institutions, and the tramps,


settling down here or there according as they were needed,


would cease to be tramps. They would be doing something


comparatively useful, getting decent food, and living a


settled life. By degrees, if the scheme worked well, they


might even cease to be regarded as paupers, and be able to


marry and take a respectable place in society.



This is only a rough idea, and there are some obvious


objections to it. Nevertheless, it does suggest a way of


improving the status of tramps without piling new burdens


on the rates. And the solution must, in any case, be


something of this kind. For the question is, what to do


with men who are underfed and idle; and the answer-to


make them grow their own food - imposes itself


automatically.




XXXVII



A WORD about the sleeping accommodation open to


a homeless person in London. At present it is impossible


to get a



bed in any non-charitable institution in London for


less than sevenpence a night. If you cannot afford


sevenpence for a bed, you must put up


with one of the following substitutes:



I. The Embankment. Here is the account that Paddy


gave me of sleeping on the Embankment:



"De whole t'ing wid de Embankment is gettin' to sleep


early. You got to be on your bench by eight o'clock,


because dere ain't too many benches and sometimes


dey're all taken. And you got


to try to get to


sleep at once. 'Tis too cold to sleep much after twelve


o'clock, an' de police turns you off at four in de mornin'.


It ain't easy to sleep, dough, wid dem bloody trams flyin'


past your head all de time, an' dem sky-signs across de


river flickin' on an' off in your eyes. De cold's cruel. Dem


as sleeps dere generally wraps demselves


up in newspaper, but it don't do much good. You'd


be bloody lucky if you got t'ree hours' sleep."



I have slept on the Embankment and found that it


corresponded to Paddy's description. It is, however,


much better than not sleeping at all, which is the alter-


native if you spend the night in the streets, elsewhere


than on the Embankment. According to the law in


London, you may sit down for the night, but the police


must move you on if they see you asleep; the Embank


ment and one or two odd corners (there is one behind


the Lyceum Theatre) are special exceptions. This law


is evidently a piece of wilful offensiveness. Its object, so it


is said, is to prevent people from dying of exposure;


but clearly if a man has no home and is going to die of


exposure, die he will, asleep or awake. In Paris there is no


such law. There, people sleep by the score under the Seine


bridges, and in doorways, and on benches in the squares,


and round the ventilating shafts of the Metro, and even


inside the Metro stations. It does no apparent harm. No


one will spend a night in the street if he can possibly help


it, and if he is going to stay out of doors he might as well


be allowed to sleep, if he can.



2. The Twopenny Hangover. This comes a little


higher than the Embankment. At the Twopenny Hang


over, the lodgers sit in a row on a bench; there is a rope


in front of them, and they lean on this as though


leaning over a fence. A man, humorously called the valet,


cuts the rope at five in the morning. I have never


been there myself, but Bozo had been there often. I asked


him whether anyone could possibly sleep in such


an attitude, and he said that it was more comfortable


than it sounded-at any rate, better than the bare


floor. There are similar shelters in Paris, but the charge


there is only twenty-five centimes (a halfpenny) instead


of twopence.



3. The Coffin, at fourpence a night. At the Coffin


you sleep in a wooden box, with a tarpaulin for cover


ing. It is cold, and the worst thing about it are the bugs,


which, being enclosed in a box, you cannot escape.



Above this come the common lodging-houses, with


charges varying between sevenpence and one and a


penny a night. The best are the Rowton Houses, where


the charge is a shilling, for which you get a cubicle to


yourself, and the use of excellent bathrooms. You can


also pay half a crown for a "special," which is practi


cally hotel accommodation. The Rowton Houses are


splendid buildings, and the only objection to them


is the strict discipline, with rules against cooking, card


playing, etc. Perhaps the best advertisement for the


Rowton Houses is the fact that they are always full to


overflowing. The Bruce Houses, at one and a penny, are


also excellent.



Next best, in point of cleanliness, are the Salvation


Army hostels, at sevenpence or eightpence. They vary (I


have been in one or two that were not very unlike common


lodging-houses), but most of them are clean, and they


have good bathrooms; you have to pay extra for a bath,


however. You can get a cubicle for a shilling. In the


eightpenny dormitories the beds are comfortable, but


there are so many of them (as a rule at least forty to a


room), and so close together, that it is impossible to get a


quiet night. The numerous restrictions stink of prison and


charity. The Salvation Army hostels would only appeal to


people who put cleanliness before anything else.



Beyond this there are the ordinary common lodging-


houses. Whether you pay sevenpence or a shilling, they


are all stuffy and noisy, and the beds are uniformly dirty


and uncomfortable. What redeems them are their



laissez-



faire


atmosphere and the warm homelike kitchens where


one can lounge at all hours of the day or night. They are


squalid dens, but some kind of social life is possible in


them. The women's lodging-houses are said to be generally


worse than the men's, and there are very few houses with


accommodation for married couples. In fact, it is nothing


out of the common for a homeless man to sleep in one


lodging-house and his wife in another.



At this moment at least fifteen thousand people in


London are living in common lodging-houses. For an


unattached man earning two pounds a week, or less, a


lodging-house is a great convenience. He could hardly get


a furnished room so cheaply, and the lodging-house gives


him free firing, a bathroom of sorts, and plenty


of society. As for the dirt, it is a minor evil. The really bad


fault of lodging-houses is that they are places in which


one pays to sleep, and in which sound sleep is impossible.


All one gets for one's money is a bed measuring five feet


six by two feet six, with a hard convex mattress and a


pillow like a block of wood, covered by one cotton


counterpane and two grey, stinking sheets. In winter there


are blankets, but never enough. And this bed is in a room


where there are never less than five, and sometimes fifty


or sixty beds, a yard or two apart. Of course, no one can


sleep soundly in such circumstances. The only other


places where people are herded like this are barracks and


hospitals. In the public wards of a hospital no one even


hopes to sleep well. In barracks the soldiers are crowded,


but they have good beds, and they are healthy; in a


common lodginghouse nearly all the lodgers have chronic


coughs, and a large number have bladder diseases which


make them get up at all the hours of the night. The result


is a perpetual racket, making sleep impossible. So far as


my observation goes, no one in a lodging-house sleeps


more than five hours a night-a damnable swindle when


one has paid sevenpence or more.



Here legislation could accomplish something. At


present there is all manner of legislation by the L.C.C..


about lodging-houses, but it is not done in the interests of


the lodgers. The L.C.C. only exert themselves to forbid


drinking, gambling, fighting, etc. etc. There is no law to


say that the beds in a lodging-house must be comfortable.


This would be quite an easy thing to enforce-much easier,


for instance, than restrictions upon gambling. The


lodging-house keepers should be compelled to provide


adequate bedclothes and better mattresses, and above all


to divide their dormitories into cubicles. It does not matter


how small a cubicle is,


the important thing is that a man should be alone when


he sleeps. These few changes, strictly enforced, would


make an enormous difference. It is not impossible to make


a lodging-house reasonably comfortable at the usual rates


of payment. In the Croydon municipal lodging-house,


where the charge is only ninepence, there are cubicles,


good beds, chairs (a very rare luxury in lodging-houses),


and kitchens above ground instead of in a cellar. There is


no reason why every ninepenny lodging-house should not


come up to this standard.



Of course, the owners of lodging-houses would be


opposed



en bloc to any improvement, for their present


business is an immensely profitable one. The average


house takes five or ten pounds a night, with no bad debts


(credit being strictly forbidden), and except for rent the


expenses are small. Any improvement would mean less


crowding, and hence less profit. Still, the excellent


municipal lodging-house at Croydon shows how well one


can be served for ninepence. A few welldirected laws could


make these conditions general. If the authorities are going


to concern themselves with lodging-houses at all, they


ought to start by making them more comfortable, not by


silly restrictions that would never be tolerated in a hotel.




XXXVIII



AFTER we left the spike at Lower Binfield, Paddy and I


earned half a crown at weeding and sweeping in


somebody's garden, stayed the night at Cromley, and


walked back to London. I parted from Paddy a day or two


later. B. lent me a final two pounds, and, as I had only


another eight days to hold out, that was the end


of my troubles. My tame imbecile turned out worse than I


had expected, but not bad enough to make me wish myself


back in the spike or the Auberge de Jehan Cottard.



Paddy set out for Portsmouth, where he had a friend


who might conceivably find work for him, and I have never


seen him since. A short time ago I was told that he had


been run over and killed, but perhaps my informant was


mixing him up with someone else. I had news of Bozo only


three days ago. He is in Wandsworth -fourteen days for


begging. I do not suppose prison worries him very much.



My story ends here. It is a fairly trivial story, and I can


only hope that it has been interesting in the same way as


a travel diary is interesting. I can at least say, Here is the


world that awaits you if you are ever penniless. Some day I


want to explore -that world more thoroughly. I should like


to know people like Mario and Paddy and Bill the


moocher, not from casual encounters, but intimately; I


should like to understand what really goes on in the souls


of plongeurs and tramps and Embankment sleepers. At


present I do not feel that I have seen more than the fringe


of poverty.



Still I can point to one or two things I have definitely


learned by being hard up. I shall never again think that all


tramps are drunken scoundrels, nor expect a beggar to be


grateful when I give him a penny, nor be surprised if men


out of work lack energy, nor subscribe to the Salvation


Army, nor pawn my clothes, nor refuse a handbill, nor


enjoy a meal at a smart restaurant. That is a beginning.





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