Among the sixty persons present, there were at least twenty-five women, composed of female tramps, vagrants, prostitutes, coster-girls, and peddlers of different kinds of commodities, which they had to leave in an adjoining room that was locked up by the Deputy Lodging Master until the time of leaving their beds early in the morning, when the merchandise was delivered to its owners.
It was by the advice of an Inspector of Police that I made this essay to sleep in a cheap lodging house. He informed me that it was the only method of obtaining a clear knowledge of the habits and practices of the lodgers.
The "Lord Chancellor's" bed, as Damnable Jack called it, facetiously, was the best, from its appearance, in the room, and was at the farthest corner. It was generally used by the Deputy Lodging Master, and had a little chintz screen around it, and the bed itself, which had comparatively clean sheets and bed-furniture, was elevated a few feet from the floor on a sort of trestle work.
The charge for this bed was a shilling to each of us, and the policeman and myself laid down upon it in our clothes, the policeman having a revolver in his side pocket, upon which he kept his right hand during the night, whether he slept or had his eyes open.
I could not sleep in the terrible hole for several hours, and, in fact, did not think of doing so, as I was eager to watch the proceedings of the Scum of London, of which the lodgers were composed.
Many of the young girls had not retired when we came in, and a few of them now began to divest themselves of their clothing, without shame or compunction on their part, or surprise on the part of their fellow lodgers, excepting that now and then some low-bred ruffian would pour forth a torrent of obscenity when some of the female lodgers exposed portions of their filthy bodies.
The place was swarming with vermin, bed-bugs, roaches, and body parasites, in countless numbers, and this was one reason why many of the female lodgers stripped themselves to lie down, for some of the beds were so thickly packed that it was impossible for the Deputy Lodging Master to pass through the room without treading upon an exposed hand or foot, and in such a case, blasphemous and vile execrations were heaped upon his devoted head by the lodgers. This he bore with the greatest indifference as if he had never heard a word of it. The lodgers hoped by stripping naked to avoid having any of the vermin cling to their clothing—a wise precaution, as I found.
THE SCUM OF LONDON.
Men, women, and children, without regard to age, sex, condition, or kindred, slept together in this room, and as the night advanced the stench from their hot, loathsome bodies, rose like a hellish incense and nearly smothered me with its fumes. There the breath of each lodger was worse than the odor of a charnel house, so that I deemed it a wonder as I sat up in bed looking through a rent in the chintz curtain which enclosed our bed, a lamp burning faintly on a table the while, that sixty of God's creatures could sleep this way night after night, summer and winter, and yet be able to eat, drink, sleep, marry, beget children, and still thrive like deadly nightshade, to poison London and its neighborhood with their reeking effluvia.