Glimpses into the Abyss

by Mary Higgs

The task mistress came and asked us if we could wash or clean. Three of us were set to pick oakum. I could not volunteer to stand over the wash-tub, and, besides, I wished to unravel the mysteries of oakum picking, and learn the histories of my comrades in misfortune. So we three sat on a wood bench in a cold room, and three pounds of oakum each was solemnly weighed out to us. Do you know what oakum is? A number of old ropes, some of them tarred, some knotted, are cut into lengths; you have to untwist and unravel them inch by inch. We were all "'prentice hands." One woman had once done a little; we had never done any! After two hours I perhaps had done a quarter of a pound, and my fingers were getting sore, while the pile before me seemed to diminish little. Then I was asked if I could clean, and gladly escaped to a more congenial task. One woman only picked oakum all day; she was the one who was penalised. She had never done it before, and did not nearly finish her quota, though I helped her a little later on. Fortunately it was not demanded, but it might be at the will of an officer.

It will easily be perceived that long before this any dream I had of ideal tramp ward conditions had vanished. I was instead filled with amazement that any enlightened and Christian men and women could consider this a refuge for destitution, and wonder at a preference for brickfields and liberty. Prison treatment would be preferable, but my wonder was still to grow.

For the prevailing idea in my class of society, which I to some extent shared, was that tramps as a class were so incorrigible, and so determined to lead a nomad existence, that the life had somehow a mysterious charm for them, and the only thing was to severely penalise vagrancy in order to deter men and women from it. Viewed in this light, it might be desirable that the treatment in a tramp ward should be equalised to that of a prison as a deterrent. A suspicion had been gradually growing in my mind that there was a destitution that was not voluntary vagrancy, and an actual forcing of lives into nomad existence. But I had not realised the pressure our system exerts in the direction of a wandering life.

Let me introduce you to my companions and assure you I shall ever regard them with affection and respect.

There is first of all "Granny," a poor old body of seventy sorrowful years. Once she had a little home of her own, and brought up a family of five sons and daughters. But her "old man" died; still her son supported her, and she led a precarious existence, much plagued by "rheumatics." But one day, not long ago, the place where her son worked was burned down, and she lost her stay and was turned adrift. She had mother-wit enough to beg her way; people gave her tea and pence. She "paid her way" in tramp wards, taking in a little tea and sugar and "tipping" officials with a penny for hot water. She offered me a halfpenny for a screw of sugar. She had begged unsuccessfully of a child at a door before coming in; the mother stood behind and refused. "As if a spoonful of sugar would have hurt her," Granny scornfully said. One thing remained to her—liberty—but to keep this she was forced to walk from town to town, sampling tramp wards. She had not done it long, but it was too much for her. One arm was too painful to be touched; it was hard to put on her tattered garments; she provoked the wrath of officials by dilatoriness. Her legs were a study. Each leg was swathed in bandages, her feet wrapped in old stocking legs and bandaged, and men's boots put over all, a long—long process. Poor old soul! she wanted to end her wanderings, and told us, I believe truthfully, that she had tried to get into two workhouses, but had not succeeded. Knowing the reluctance of officials to admit paupers out of their own parish, I can well believe it. She was really ill when she came, besides possible complications of having been "treated" to a drink of whisky. She could hardly stand, had a cough and looked feverish, and only fit to lie down; we had to help her on her feet several times. Perhaps her ailments bulked large—most old people's do—but she did not after all groan so very much considering. She was ordered out, but she said with truth that she might "fall down in the street." It did seem likely she might just go wandering on "till she dropped," so we all advised her to stay and see the doctor, who might order her into the House. She seemed to have only a mazy idea of how to go to work to get in, but she took our advice, saw the doctor, and was allowed to stay another night, but not ordered in, as she could stand. However, she might the next day, after being turned out, herself apply for admission, and this we all united to advise her to do. The one effect her wanderings had produced in her was a deadly hatred of workhouse officials. In the afternoon, after singing a hymn, I comforted her by telling that her wanderings might soon end in a better place. She was not sure of going to "heaven," but she felt sure she should meet many of these her tormentors in hell, and "then," she said, "I'll heave bricks at 'em!" I couldn't help suggesting "hot bricks" as appropriate, and then talked to her about "loving her enemies." "I can't help it," she said, "if it keeps me out of heaven, I hate 'em—I hate 'em all!" Poor old soul, she lay on a form most of the day, obviously ill, worried out of the bed on which, in the absence of an officer, she laid her poor old bones. The officer next morning truly said that the workhouse, and not the tramp ward, was the place for her; but she scoffed unbelievingly at her story of having tried to get admission. Yet Granny continually told us she longed to get in and have "a good bed," and one can imagine a poor old body like that, with no one to speak for her, might have difficulties with a relieving officer. But we had to leave her behind us, though one longed to take her by the hand, and see her safely in. I was not in a physical condition to stand the long hours of waiting from 6.30 a.m. till the office at which she would be admitted was opened. We advised her to stay as long as she could, and then go there. Next in order was a married woman, whom I would gladly own for my own relation. Her husband was on the men's side. "That's my old man," she said, on going out; "I know him by his cough." She had been well brought up and had sisters in good circumstances comparatively. She was the "black sheep of the family," and had drifted, probably through marriage, into destitute circumstances. She and her "old man" were comfortably ensconced in a workhouse where, as a good steady worker, she was probably not unwelcome. But she heard her sister in a distant town was dying, and they took their discharge and walked there and back, close on seventy miles, arriving in time and staying for the funeral. She was very, very weary with the long tramp, accomplished within a week. I believe they were re-entering the workhouse. This woman had a pleasant face and manner, and took several opportunities of doing small kindnesses; she did not grumble, she only mildly complained of the task set her. I think she had cause—she was set to scrub a very long and wide corridor. She steadily scrubbed away for hours; she had no kneeling pad, and it was "hard lines" on poor food and in a tired state. How many of us would have walked seventy miles to see a dying sister, and, weary and sorrowful, work without complaining, and with a cheerful face, and an eye for others' sorrows?

A woman who interested me much was also a married woman. Once she had been waitress in an hotel frequented by the gentry, a place I knew well, and travelled with her wages in her pocket to buy clothes. She was still better dressed, a shapely woman, with a face almost handsome, graceful in her movements and a capital worker. Her husband did not look a bad specimen of a working man. Her story was that they had had a comfortable home; he was once a singer in a church choir. But his particular branch of trade failed, and he had to seek a growingly obsolete kind of work where it was to be found. They had tramped north in vain to find it, and were now tramping back to their old neighbourhood in the hope that things would be better. This woman also did not complain, and behaved in a self-respecting manner, not a foul word or reproach; she worked steadily, but was very weary and restless at night. She had a heavy cold on her and grew worse instead of better. I seem to see her sitting wearily up in bed, unable to get the needed repose. They had walked long distances recently.

A more doubtful character was "Pollie," who apparently was well known to the officials. She was left stranded, as her husband, one fine day, being let out of a tramp ward before her, left her behind. She complained bitterly that the men were let out so long before the women, they had time to get "miles out of the road." If she caught him he would "get three months." Meanwhile she intended to visit a sister who would give her a few shillings, and then make tracks for another sister. Her face was not unhandsome, but her nose betrayed the real reason of her misfortunes, and her tongue was ready, and not too clean. She knew the workhouses far and wide, and had had her tussles with the authorities. She had thrown her bread and cheese at a matron who gave her it after hard work, giving another woman a workhouse diet. She had been in prison for "lip." She was, in fact, a tramp proper, and with a little drink and boon companions probably foul-mouthed and violent. But she and Granny were the only ones who used expressions not polite to give point to their opinions, and that only occasionally. They were under no restraint, unless our interior character insensibly sweetened the atmosphere, for no one, not the most travelled, suspected us. We had been "on the road," could refer to workhouse reminiscences, and "knew the country" far and wide. We freely rewarded confidences by real bits of history. As we sang in concert, probably that was thought to be our "line of business." We were complimented on our voices—I, like the husband above mentioned, had once "been in a choir." I felt sure we should have got a good living "on the road." A tramp man who passed us told us he thought we should have been "miles further by now." He watched us, and made in the same direction. I twitted my companion on the loss of a chance for life.

It might be thought our speech would betray us, but I do not know that it was more educated than that of one at least of our companions. We were with "all sorts and conditions of women" but not the worst.

There remains to be described a little Scotch woman, also married. She had been a servant, and was a "neat-handed Phyllis." Born near Glasgow she married south. Work failing, she and her husband had tramped the weary miles to her friends in the hope of work. They had returned, viâ Barrow, and were bound further south, so far seeking work and finding none. They had become habituated to tramp wards on the long march, and could tell the character of most, and the stages of the journey.

These were the only ones we got to know intimately; a sorrowful woman with a sickly-looking child, who came overnight, were seeking admission to the workhouse that morning.