The Mysteries of Modern London

by George R. Sims

A few strange-looking men in sea-stained coats and high boots are standing about on the pavement, silent and solemn, with a dull, anxious look in their eyes.

We recognize the Jewish Shelter, look at the little groups, say to ourselves, "More alien immigrants," and perhaps pass on.

But if we go round to the back of the house we find ourselves in a narrow street which ends in a dead wall. And in this street, standing four deep in a line that stretches right away to the wall itself, are hundreds of the soldiers of the Tsar. They are all Jews, they have all escaped from Russia at the risk of their lives. Most of them had only a few roubles in their pockets. But they have come from Russia—some even from Manchuria—and they are here to-night in the quiet, deserted London street waiting their turn to go before the committee which is sitting in the big room of the Shelter to hear their stories, and see what can be done to help them to make a new home thousands of miles away across the seas.

Two London policemen and an inspector are standing in the roadway. They are there to preserve order among these six or seven hundred Russian reservists. But their office is a sinecure. These hunted men, fresh from a land of tyranny, are silent, cowed, incapable of anything but the blindest obedience to the authority of the land to which they have fled seeking a City of Refuge.

There is no need for the policemen to speak to them. If they did, no one in the thickly packed mob of men would understand them. None of the refugees speak a word of English; Yiddish—the German-Jewish jargon—is their mother tongue; but most of them, having been in the army, speak a little Russian.

The inspector, finding that the crowd is spreading over into the roadway, makes a motion with his hand, and the men press closer together. They understand the gesture, and obey it as quickly as they would obey the upraised whip of the Cossack.

They have not yet learnt that in England no one in authority will knock them about or kick them. If they were so used they would not show any resentment. It is the way in which they have been habitually treated in Russia. Sometimes one of their own number, placed in temporary authority to assist the staff of the Shelter, clears a way for someone to pass by, thrusting his compatriots back with a little violence. He does not understand that there is anything unusual in this method of giving an order. When it is explained to him that in England we don't lay hands upon peaceable people in this way, he is astonished. What a wonderful country! The great people don't knock a poor Jew off the footpath! They speak to him civilly! It takes a newly arrived Russian Jew many days to understand that he is going to be treated like a human being, and that even the police will not kick him or hit him on the head if he is unfortunate enough to be in the way.

This Sunday evening there are more than six hundred refugees waiting to enter the doors of the Shelter and go before the committee. During the week over a thousand have arrived. They are mostly the reservists who have been called up and have fled to avoid further service. They have served once—many of them have only just finished their time and returned to their wives and families. They don't want to go to Manchuria. They are Jews; and the Jew serves the Tsar under grievous disabilities. He cannot rise in rank. If he is killed, no information is forwarded to his relatives. In Russia, a Jew is outside the pale of humanity.

Let us pass into the building. We have left a packed army of men standing dumb and motionless outside. Here in a kind of courtyard is another silent and motionless crowd. Two hundred men at least are crowded together, and not a sound comes from their lips. They look like statues of despair. Their one feeling is of relief that they are now inside the Shelter, and so their chance of getting before the committee to-night is better.

We pass from this courtyard to an inner room. It is packed. We have seen already nearly a thousand deserters from the Tsar's army. The Shelter cannot provide accommodation for a tenth of this vast army of fugitives. But every one will get a ticket that will give him food and a lodging. So much these unhappy immigrants know. What they do not know is whether they will be helped to America, to Canada, to the Argentine, to any of the lands where there are Jewish colonies, and where they will be able to toil and save, and in time send for the wives and children left behind in Russia to join them.