The Mysteries of Modern London

by George R. Sims

At the corner of one of the side streets—the corner at which the clamour of the market ends and the quiet of the English Sabbath begins—there is a huge, well-ordered, common lodging-house.

The whole neighbourhood is Jewish, the area is given up now almost entirely to the alien immigrant; but in this vast lodging-house the guests are not Jews but Gentiles.

In the entrance hall there is a case in which the letters awaiting the arrival of guests are exposed. There are letters from abroad, letters with American and colonial stamps on them; envelopes directed in a clerkly hand, envelopes directed in handwriting which tells of culture and refinement, and there are envelopes with a scrawled, ill-spelt address upon them.

For this Hotel of the Poor, where the prices range from five-pence to sixpence a night, has a reputation for comfort, good order, and good management, and attracts a superior order of men to that found in the fourpenny lodging-houses in the locality which are largely patronized by the criminal and the vagabond class.

On Sunday morning the clients of the doss-house lie later. It is a privilege accorded by custom. On ordinary days the guests are expected to be out of bed and downstairs by ten at the latest, but on Sunday, if you go over the dormitories and cubicles, even as late as twelve o'clock, you will find plenty of beds still occupied by slumbering—sometimes by snoring—citizens.

But by noon the majority of the patrons of the Poor Man's Hotel have "descended." Some are lounging against the wall in the street, taking the air. Many are in the vast underground apartment which serves the purpose of a common kitchen, and breakfast is in the course of preparation or consumption. Hard by this apartment is another, which is fitted up with every arrangement for as much ablution as the client of the house may care to indulge in. He can have a bath, or he can wash his face and hands. He can, if he is so minded, brush his hat, and there is a bit of looking-glass, in front of which he can arrange his collar—if he has one—and his necktie.

Fivepence carries you considerably further on the road to comfort here than fourpence does in most of the smaller establishments.

I know the doss-houses of most parts of London. I have spent mornings and evenings round the coke fire of the common kitchen with all sorts and conditions of male and female dossers, and I have always been struck by the note of classification which distinguishes them. Even the poorest of the poor have their sympathies, and, if I may use the word, their "aloofnesses."

The thieves do not care to mix with the honest folks; the tramps and vagabonds look down upon the workers, and the men of the working-class look askance at the wreckage of the black coat brigade. So each class has its own particular doss-houses. Even the begging-letter writers have their favourite haunts; in one house the clients are nearly all begging-letter writers, and sometimes pool the receipts.

The "screever," who is practically a public writer at the service of anyone willing to pay for a well-concocted story and a touching appeal, is not so particular. He puts up at any house where he is likely to find clients.