Conversation ceased.
With particular attention I traced the adventures of one family which had expanded beyond the three-child limit. The parents had first moved over to the fringes of the city, and thereafter as more children were born had traveled from place to place, progressively more dingy, more decrepit. They now had nine and were inhabiting a hovel in the shipbuilding slums, unimaginably filthy and too far from the splendid utilities ever to enjoy them.
The further I looked, the greater grew the inconsistency. The model markets carried chiefly wholesale produce, and the really poor, who were obliged to huddle on the far side of the city, contented themselves with bread and tea and were thankful to have it. Another disappointment was the washhouses, dating from 1878 when they had been deemed a public necessity because men had protested they were being driven from their homes by washing which, on account of the incessant rain, seemed to hang there forever. A stall cost only twopence an hour, less expensive than heating water at home, and there were always women waiting in line. But the tram system, which was on the point of being liquidated in spite of its low fares, forbade laundry baskets, and, consequently, those who were not within walking distance—and they were the ones who needed it most—were deprived of its use.
Throughout the slum section I saw drunken, sodden women whose remaining, snag-like teeth stuck down like fangs and protruded from their sunken mouths. When I asked one of the executive officers of the corporation why they were so much more degraded than the men, he replied, “Oh, the women of Glasgow are all dirty and low. They’re hopeless.”
“But why should this be?” I persisted.
His only answer was, “It’s their own fault.”
Bill and I walked about late at night, overwhelmed by the unspeakable poverty. The streets were filled with fighting, shiftless beggars. Hundreds of women were abroad, the big shawls over their heads serving two purposes: one, to keep their shoulders warm; the other, to wrap around the baby which each one carried. It was apparent that their clothing consisted only of a shawl, a petticoat, a wrapper, and shoes. Older children were begging, “A ha’penny for bread, Missus, a ha’penny for bread.”
It was infinitely cold, dreary, and disappointing—so much talk about more wages and better subsistence, and here the workers had it and what were they getting?—a little more light, perhaps, a few more pennies a day, the opportunity to buy food a little more cheaply, a few parks in which they could wander, a bank where their money earned a fraction more interest. But as soon as they passed beyond the border of another baby, they were in exactly the same condition as the people beyond the realm of municipal control.
Municipal ownership was one more thing to throw in the discard.
One dull, rainy day, glad to leave behind the shrill, crying voices of the beggars of Glasgow, we boarded a horrid cattle boat bound for Antwerp. The children were all seasick as we bounced and tossed over the North Sea. It was something of a job to handle the three of them with no nurse, especially when the storm threw them out of their beds on to the cabin floor. Fortunately they suffered no fractures, although twenty-six horses in the hold had to be shot because their legs had been broken.