The Man Farthest Down: A Record of Observation and Study in Europe

by Booker T. Washington; Robert Ezra Park

I had an opportunity to observe the evil effects of the drinking habit upon the Englishwomen of the lower classes when I visited some of the police courts in the poorer parts of London. When I remarked to a newspaper acquaintance in London that I wanted to see as much as I could, while I was in the city, of the life of the poorer people, he advised me to visit the Worship Street and Thames police stations. The Worship Street station is situated in one of the most crowded parts of London, in close proximity to Bethnal Green and Spitalfields, which have for many years been the homes of the poorer working classes, and especially of those poor people known as houseworkers and casuals, who live in garrets and make paper boxes, artificial flowers, etc., or pick up such odd jobs as they can find. The Thames station is situated a little way from London Dock and not far from the notorious Ratcliffe Highway, which until a few years ago was the roughest and most dangerous part of London.

Perhaps I ought to say, at the outset, that two things in regard to the London police courts especially impressed me: first, the order and dignity with which the court is conducted; second, the care with which the judge inquires into all the facts of every case he tries, the anxiety which he shows to secure the rights of the defendant, and the leniency with which those found guilty are treated. In many cases, particularly those in which men or women were charged with drunkenness, the prisoners were allowed to go with little more than a mild and fatherly reprimand.

After listening for several hours to the various cases that came up for hearing, I could well understand that the police have sometimes complained that their efforts to put down crime were not supported by the magistrates, who, they say, always take the side of the culprits.

In this connection I might mention a statement which I ran across recently of a man who had served at one time as a magistrate in both the Worship Street and Thames police courts. He said that there was a great deal of drunkenness among certain of the factory girls of East London, although they were seldom arrested and brought into court for that offence.

He added: "It must not be forgotten that the number of convictions for drunkenness is not by any means a proper measure of insobriety. If a policeman sees a drunken man conducting himself quietly or sleeping in a doorway, he passes on and takes no notice. Those who are convicted belong, as a rule, to the disorderly classes, who, the moment liquor rises to their heads, manifest their natural propensities by obstreperous and riotous conduct. For one drunkard of this order there must be fifty who behave quietly and always manage to reach their homes, however zigzag may be their journey thither."

That statement was made a number of years ago, but I am convinced that it holds good now, because I noticed that most of the persons arrested and brought into court, especially women, were bloodstained and badly battered.

In the majority of these cases, as I have said, the persons were allowed to go with a reprimand or a small fine. The only case in which, it seemed to me, the judge showed a disposition to be severe was in that of a poor woman who was accused of begging. She was a pale, emaciated, and entirely wretched appearing little woman, and the charge against her was that of going through the streets, leading one of her children by the hand, and asking for alms because she and her children were starving. I learned from talking with the officer who investigated the case that the statement she made was very likely true. He had known her for some time, and she was in a very sad condition. But then, it seems, the law required that in such circumstances she should have gone to the workhouse.

I think that there were as many as fifteen or twenty women brought into court on each of the mornings I visited the court. Most of them were arrested for quarrelling and fighting, and nearly all of them showed in their bloated faces and in their disorderly appearance that steady and besotted drunkenness was at the bottom of their trouble.

I have found since I returned from Europe that the extent of drunkenness among Englishwomen has frequently been a matter of observation and comment. Richard Grant White, in his volume "England Within and Without," says: