Known to the Police

e other to saints. I have spoken freely about the difficulties of prisoners and with prisoners; let me now tell of the struggles, difficulties, and virtues of the industrious poor. I will draw a ve

to tell. And I have some right to speak, for I know the very poor as few can know them. From personal touch and friendly communion my experience has bee

g

I want and mean to be a faithful witness, so I will tell of nothing that I have not seen, I will describe no person that does not exist, and no narrative shall sully my pages that is not true in fact and detail. Imagination is of no service to me. I am as zealous for mere facts as was Mr. Gradgrind himself, and my facts shall be real, self-sufficing facts, out-vying imagination, and conveying their own lesson. If

nes. Happy were they in recent years when their united earnings amounted to twenty-one shillings for a week's work of eighty hours. "Tell me," I said to the widow, "how long have you lived in your present house?" "Forty years," said the widow. "Emmy was born in it, and my husband was buried from it. I have been reckoning up, and find that I have paid more than twelve hundred pounds in rent, besides the rates." "Impossible," I said,

es of the industrious poor. If they wish to live in any

elief. All sorts of subterfuges are resorted to, and it is no uncommon thing for a woman, when applying for one or more rooms, to state the number of her children to be less than half what it is in reality. Sometimes,

t they must "clear out." Their landlords say so, the sanitary authorities say so, and the magistrate confirms the landlord and the sanitary authorities. The one cry, the one plea of all the poor who are to be ejected is: "Where are we to go? We can't get another place." The kindly magistrate generally allows a few weeks' grace, and tells them to do their

es, the children keeping watch, and shivering as they watched. I have spoken to the children, asked them

g staircase after staircase, exploring and appealing time after time. She will stoutly declare that she has but two children, when she has six; she will declare that her husband is a good, sober man, and in regular work, neither of which will be true. Ultimately, she will promise to pay an impossible rent, and tremulously hand ov

illings remain unpaid. The wife has to procure other rooms when her husband has fallen out of work, and she receives the inevitable notice to quit when there appears to be a possibility of the family becoming still more numerous. If sickness, contagious or otherwise, comes upon[Pg 152] any of the children, and the shadow of death enters the home, upon the wife comes the heart-breaking task of seeking a n

is reduced, what privations she endures! Is it any wonder tha

orn of thee are

the breaking

e houses in which they live, the conditions under which they exist, the ceaseless worries and nameless

eyes were dim, and the hands lying on the quilt were more like claws than human hands. As I stood over her, she looked up and said: "Are you Mr. Holmes? I want my rent." Her voice was so strange and thin that I had some difficulty in understanding her, but I found that the tenant upstairs owed her five weeks' rent, and that, now her husband was in prison, the poor old woman was afraid of losing it. As the matter seemed to trouble her greatly, I told her that I would pay the arrears of her rent. "But I want it now," she went on. "The collector is coming to-morrow, and I shall be put out-I shall be put out." I stroked her thin hair, and told her that I would call early the next morning and give her the money. But the poor woman looked worried and doubtful. I called early the next morning, and found the old woman expecting me. "Have you brought my rent?" were the first words I heard on enteri

that first and foremost of all questions affecting the health and happiness of the nation stands the one great question of "housing the very po

r people who have lived for years under such conditions prefer those conditions to any other. And this holds true even with those who have known the bracing effect of[Pg 155] cold water on their bodies, and have felt the breath of God in their lungs. The return path to dirt is always alluring to the human body. Ti

eling of disgust; high rents produce no sense of injustice, no feelings of resentment: for the poor become absolutely passive. Yes, and passive in more ways than one; for they, without question or demur, accept any payment that may be given them for such services as they can rende

wrong, though they[Pg 156] know not what. Their only ambition is to live their little lives in their very little homes; to be ready weekly with their four shillings for their wretched room in a wretched house; to have p

? The death of aspiration. A machine-like perseverance and endurance is gradually developed; but the hope of bett

under which they lived that no amount of persuasion could induce th

but it was crowded with humanity. I found the house, and went up the rotten staircase to the first-floor back. There I found the prisoner's wife, sitting[Pg 157] at a machine making babies' boots. In the room was an old broken perambulator, in which were two children, one asleep and the other with that everlasting deceit, a "baby's comforter," in its mouth. As the child fed on the thick air it looked at me with won

th match-boxes. A small table and two old chairs completed the furniture. She was seated making match-boxes as

he might have been any age over seventy. She was a widow. She had lived in that room thirteen years, having come to it soon after her husband's death. Whilst I was speaking to h

g

k it, and swallowed the rice, and looked at me. I looked at the boy, and read the history of his life in his face and body. He had been born in that room; that was his bed in the corner covered with match-boxes. The o

e he had lived, moved, and had his being in that room; had fe

e the old hands that kept on with the boxes. I offered her a holiday and rest. There was the rent to be paid. I would pay the rent. She had no clothes suitable. Mrs. Holmes would send her the clothes. There was the boy to be seen to. I would arrange for him. No; she would not go. Her last wo

ry poor clothing was hanging to dry. It was winter-time, and the gloom outside only added to the gloom

had not previously seen or heard the child, it was so horribly quiet. I picked it up, and placed it on my knee, but it was passive and open-eyed as a big doll. The child had been born in that kitchen on a little substitute for a bed that half-filled the room. Its father w

ath, which occurred three years before, her husband had been tenant of the whole house, but

g

pper rooms; and with her children round her she continued her life in the lower rooms. The rent was 13s. weekly. She received 7s. 6d. weekly for the two upper rooms, leaving 5s. 6d. weekly to be the burden and anxiety of her life; so she tied knots and took in washing. The very sight of the knot-tying soon tired me, and the dark, damp atmosphere soon satisfied me. As I rose to leave, the widow invite

my hand, I bent over him and spoke kindly to him. He looked at me, then turned away from me; he would not speak to me.[Pg 161] Poor little fellow! He had suffered so long and so much that he expected

g has he lain like this?" I asked. "Three months." "Who sleeps in that bed with him?" "I do, and t

, and also that, when five years of age, he had been knocked down in the

while his father lay dying; four years of joyless poverty in a London street; five years of suffering, in and out of hospitals; and now "home to die."

, and by the faint light of her evil-smelling lamp she continues to "tie her knot

etimes it is almost impossible to find the real owners, an

Propert

ders" against tenants who had not paid their rent. Though seventy-three, she would have no agent; she could manage her own business. Suddenly she appeared as an applicant for advice. She had married: her husband was a carpenter, aged twenty-one. They had been married but a few days, and her husband refused to go to work-so she told the magistrate. "Well, you know, madam, that you have plenty for both," said the magistrate. "That's what he says, but I tell him that I did not marry him that I might keep him." She got neither help nor comfort from the [Pg 163]magistrate, so she tottered out of the court, grumbling as she went. In a few days she appeared again. "My husband has stolen some of my jewellery." Again she got no comfort. Still again she complained. "My husband has been collecting my

htlessly she opened the door, when she was seized by two men, who locked her in the front parlour while they ran upstairs, rolled the old woman in warm blankets, carried her to the cab, and away they went. A nice room and another doctor were awaiting her. Another will was drawn up, which the old woman signed. "All her worldly goods were left to her dear husband." Next morning the sister applied for a summons against the young husband, but the magistrate decided that the man had a right to run away with his own wife. All might have gone merrily for the husband, but the old lady died. The sister went t

e following paragraphs have

s Patheti

Police-Court. 'Has he given you notice?' 'Yes; but how can I go just now? The funeral is to-morrow, and I have offered to go on Wednesday, but he says he will put me in the street to-day.' 'Well, he's legally ent

nd without

ct to determine the value of the forecourts of five houses in Coldharbour Lane, Brixton, which had been required for tramway purp