The Down and Out King - 19

EMILY

And now then my clothes I will try to portray;

They're made of coarse cloth and the colour is grey,

My jacket and waistcoat don't fit me at all;

My shirt is too short, or I am too tall;

My shoes are not pairs, though of course I have two,

They are down at heel and my stockings are blue.

A sort of Scotch bonnet we wear on our heads,

And I sleep in a room where there are just fourteen beds.

Some are sleeping, some are snoring, some talking, some playing,

Some fighting, some swearing, but very few praying.

The following day, I made sure the towels and gowns were clean before the evening’s paupers came in. But I decided instead of watching them through their evening routine, I would watch the oakum picking.

There were three women sat on a wood bench in a cold room, and three pounds of oakum each was solemnly weighed out to each. The pauper in charge, Elizabeth Lankean said, “Do you know what oakum is? A number of old ropes, some of them tarred, some knotted, are cut into lengths; you have to untwist and unravel them inch by inch.” They all said they were inexperienced. One woman had once done a little. After two hours I checked back and each had perhaps done a quarter of a pound. I asked them how it was going and one's reply was, “I am cold and my fingers are getting sore, while the pile before me hardly seems to change.” So she was released to do a cleaning job, and she seemed glad to escape. One woman only picked oakum all day; She had never
done it before, and did not nearly finish her quota.

I thought I should note down points about some of these casuals, who we will probably never see again, but for the record I managed to find out some of their stories.

There is first of all Granny, about 70, who had a little home of her own, and brought up a family of five sons and daughters. But her husband died; still her son supported her, and she led a precarious
existence, much plagued by rheumatics. But one day, not long ago, the place where her son worked was burned down, and she was turned adrift. She had  wit enough to beg her way; people
gave her tea and pence. She paid her way in tramp wards, taking in a little tea and sugar and tipping officials with a penny for hot water. She offered me a halfpenny for a screw of sugar. One thing
remained to her - liberty - but to keep this she was forced to walk from town to town, sampling tramp wards. She had not done it long, but it was too much for her. One arm was too painful to be touched;
it was hard to put on her tattered garments; she provoked the anger of those in charge by being so slow.

Her legs were a study. Each leg was swathed in bandages, her feet wrapped in old stocking legs and bandaged, and men's boots put over all, a long, long process. Poor old soul! she wanted to end her wanderings, and told us, I believe truthfully, that she had tried to get into two workhouses, but had not succeeded. Knowing the reluctance of officials to admit paupers out of their own parish, I can well believe it. She was really ill when she came, and could hardly stand, had a cough and looked feverish, and only fit to lie down; we had to help her on her feet several times.

Next was a married woman. She had been well brought up and had sisters in good circumstances comparatively. She was the black sheep of the family, and had drifted, probably through marriage, into destitution. She and her husband had been comfortably ensconced in a workhouse near London, and, as a good steady worker, she was probably not unwelcome. But she heard her sister in a distant town was dying, so she and her husband took their discharge and walked there and back, close on seventy miles, arriving in time and staying for the funeral. She was very, very weary with the long tramp, accomplished within a week. This woman had a pleasant face and manner, and took several opportunities of doing small kindnesses; she did not grumble, she only mildly complained of the task set her.

A woman who interested me much was also a married woman. Once she had been waitress in an hotel frequented by the gentry, and travelled with her wages in her pocket to buy clothes. She was still better dressed, a shapely woman, with a face almost handsome, graceful in her movements and a good worker. Her story was that they had had a comfortable home; he was once a singer in a church choir. But his particular branch of trade failed, and he had to seek a growingly obsolete kind of work where it was to be found. They had tramped north in vain to find it, and were now tramping back to their old neighbourhood in the hope that things would be better. This woman also did not complain, and behaved in a self-respecting manner, not a foul word or reproach; she worked steadily, but complained she was very weary and restless at night.

A more doubtful character was Pollie who apparently was well known to Mr. Dennis, the Porter. She was left stranded, as her husband, one fine day, being let out of a tramp ward before her, left her behind. She complained bitterly that the men were let out so long before the women, they had time to get miles out of the road. If she caught him he would regret it. Meanwhile she intended to visit a sister who would give her a few shillings, and then make tracks for another sister. Her face was pretty, but her nose betrayed the real reason of her misfortunes, and her tongue was ready, and not too clean. She knew the workhouses far and wide, and had had her tussles with the authorities. I heard she had thrown her bread and cheese at a matron who gave her it after a hard day's work.. She had been in prison for lip. She was, in fact, a tramp proper, and with a little drink and similar companions was probably foul-mouthed and violent. But she and Granny were the only ones who used expressions not polite to give point to their opinions, and that only occasionally.

There remains to be described a little Scottish woman, also married. She had been a servant, born near Glasgow, she married south. Work failing, she and her husband had tramped the weary miles to her friends in the hope of work. They had returned, and were bound further south, so far seeking work and finding none. They had become habituated to tramp wards on the long march, and could tell something about each one.

Then there was a sorrowful woman with a sickly-looking child, who came overnight, and was seeking admission to the workhouse that morning.

If these were tramps, with one exception they were made so by circumstances.

One of the women worked on hour after hour with a splitting headache caused by a sleepless night. She had to clean the officer's room thoroughly, and to scrub tables, forms, floor - everything in short,
in the large day room and down the stairs, a big piece of work. Meanwhile the two married women scrubbed the big dormitory and the bath room. The Scots woman was sent off to wash, by her own request, and related gleefully how she managed to wash and dry some of her own clothing before Fanny Gingell came and told her to "mind to wash nothing of her own." One woman washed a pocket handkerchief and dried it on the steam-pipe. Nothing else was possible.

A few were taken away after two hours' oakum picking and set to clean. One dried her boots and warmed her feet, wet from the previous days' tramp. They were provided with materials, shown where to get water and set to clean, "Scrub, mind you," two lavatories, and a staircase with three landings and three flights of stairs. One was also to clean the paint in the lavatories, etc., and do the taps and the stair-rods.

Men were working in the downstairs lavatory, and kept passing and re-passing with dirty boots as fast as she cleaned. She fetched bucket after bucketful and completed her task to my satisfaction, and hers apparently, by twelve o'clock. She went back to dinner in the tramp ward, and I noticed her finishing off her bread and allotted cheese with a bit of tea. I noticed that many of the women bring out their husbanded treasures, and on this occasion I let them have boiling water.

Mr. Dennis in the office said to me, "You are soft!"

"I can't help it," I replied. I can only think that we should be offering tea with milk and sugar to all our paupers, to help repay the hard work they do. It can hardly be imagined what a warm drink can do for a thirsty soul. I gave Grannie some, and they all ate their frugal meal and seemed to find it satisfactory. I nearly said “enjoy it” but decided that wasn't quite appropriate. They are
not on the milk porridge, this lot, either.

They were allowed an hour off work, and some of them managed a few moments of most badly-needed rest. Then it was time to work and they were given new tasks. Phyllis was told to wash out an office, the little Scots woman dusted the board room and our room. All had to be ready before three. They finished to satisfaction in good time, although one was rebuked by Elizabeth for sitting to do the last piece of floor and one for not saying there was no coal in the coal-box. But they were fairly gentle rebukes. They were now very tired and could hardly carry a bucket. They were sent back to the ward.

Old Grannie was still in the ward but seemed cheered up when the others began singing, What a good idea to sing hymns that might leave some ray of comfort in her sorrowful heart, and to get in a few words about the bourne "where the wicked cease from troubling and the weary are at rest."

Grannie started to sing, "Oh, let us be joyful, when we meet to part no more," and all were ready for the "Kindly light" to lead them home. I have discovered that this and "Abide with me," with "Jesus, Lover of my soul" are the tramps' favourites.

The little Scots woman loved some of the songs of bonnie Scotland. They all chimed in, and the hours passed. Then Fanny Gingell appeared saying one of them had forgotten the store room, it was locked up and not cleaned. She chose Phyllis and she wearily set to work with a will, scrubbing the floor with sand and soft soap.

When all was finished, they awaited the next meal, not with eagerness, for the third time of gruel and dry bread can't be very exciting, but at any rate with hunger. It was a long, long wait from twelve dinner to somewhere about six. A slender breakfast at six, dinner at twelve, and hard work left something lacking; and I had noticed the morning gruel, which I always sample now, was slightly sour also. Nevertheless, after a seemingly long wait, during which they seemed to grow comfortable in my presence and we all grew quite chummy, I extracted much information and confirmation of personal histories and social condition. At last their supper arrived, and I noticed they all finished the gruel with appetite, but as the Scots woman told me, she could not, without a drink, eat dry bread.

Then another wait. They all grew tired to utter weariness, longing for bed. They sat in various listless attitudes, half starved, cold, too weary to talk. There was nothing to see, skylighted as the room was, nothing to do but to pick oakum, which still lay in measured heaps on the floor, nothing to read save the "regulations for tramps" on the walls.

At last it was bed time once more, and the women were shown to their uneasy couches. They were allowed to take their shawls to the room where they slept - securing a little more comfort.

I shall never forget one of the women casuals who came in rather late. She was a respectable woman of the barmaid class, slightly grey-haired, and therefore rather old for employment. She was well dressed. She was out of a place and had applied at a Shelter too late to be admitted, and was sent here. She had never been in such a place before, and her astonishment at the conditions amounted almost to horror. I watched as she was shown how to make the most of her bed - none of those near her were asleep. She twisted and turned her wet, grey head on the hard pillow, sneezing with the beginning of a cold. She sat up and lay down. "My God!" I heard her say, "one can't sleep in this place." And with reason, for though the interruptions were not so numerous, they were sufficient to effectually break sleep. Grannie did not groan so much, but she got out of bed, was scolded, and had to be helped in. "Don't be so soft," I heard one woman say, as she gave an involuntary small
scream when one of her aching limbs was touched. It was true she had given trouble, but she was old, feeble, and ailing. It would not have been hard to be kind.

Then Phyllis declared herself to be ill. The last meal of gruel coming as a distasteful meal on a tired body had not been digested. Sickness came upon her, and she three times got up, and parting with her hard-earned supper. Each time, she had to paddle over great bare spaces in scanty attire.

At that stage I stopped my research for the day, and went to make up my notes.