Glimpses into the Abyss

by Mary Higgs

If these were tramps, with one exception they were made so by circumstances.

Shall I picture my brave little friend and companion, who worked on hour after hour with a splitting headache caused by a sleepless night? She had to clean the officer's room thoroughly, and to scrub tables, forms, floor—everything in short, in the large day room and down the stairs, a big piece of work. Meanwhile the two married women scrubbed the big dormitory and the bath room. The Scotch woman was told off to wash, by her own request, and related gleefully how she managed to wash and dry some of her own clothing before the officer came and told her to "mind and wash nothing of her own." We were meanwhile growing dirtier, and in more need of a bath than the first night. One woman washed a pocket handkerchief and dried it on the steam-pipe. Nothing else was possible.

I was taken away after two hours' oakum picking and set to clean. While waiting for a bucket I saw a fire. Welcome sight. I dried my boots and warmed my feet, wet from the previous days' tramp. I was provided with materials, shown where to get water and set to clean, "Scrub, mind you," two lavatories, two w.c.'s, and a staircase with three landings and three flights of stairs. I was also to clean the paint in the lavatories, etc., and do the taps and the stair-rods. Of the latter task, however, I was relieved by a pauper woman, who said her work, of which she was thoroughly sick, was constantly to clean brasses. I like cleaning, and set to work with a will, only one soon comes to the end of one's strength after a restless night and an insufficient breakfast. I found I must moderate my speed or I should not last the day out. Men were doing a cistern in the downstairs lavatory, and kept passing and re-passing with dirty boots as fast as I cleaned. My taskmistress, after one inspection, left me alone to it. I fetched bucket after bucketful and completed my task to my own satisfaction, and hers apparently, by twelve o'clock. She was not unreasonable, but a little sharp. She sent me back to dinner in the tramp ward, and "hunger sauce" enabled me to finish the bread and cheese allotted, washed down by tea. We all brought out our husbanded treasures, and the kinder official let us have boiling water. The man in the office sneered at her and remonstrated, "You are soft!" "I can't help it," she replied. May God bless her, for it can hardly be imagined what a warm drink was to a thirsty soul, even without milk and with little sugar. We gave Grannie some, and all ate our frugal meal without repining and with thankful hearts. We were allowed an hour, and resting my head on the table I snatched a few moments of most badly-needed rest. Then it was time to work. I was taken to the House and given a new task, to wash out an office, the little Scotch woman dusted the board room and my room. All had to be ready before three. I finished to satisfaction in good time, being once rebuked for sitting to do the last piece of floor (I had been on my knees without a pad for hours), and once for not saying there was no coal in the coal-box. But these were gentle rebukes. I was now very tired and could hardly carry my bucket. I slopped the water a little; perhaps my taskmistress saw I was tired, at any rate, she laid on me nothing further, but sent me back to the ward.

There my friend's task was by no means ended, she was on her knees scrubbing painfully, a quarter of the floor yet to do. I tried my hand, but was not quite "in the know," so I sang to her to cheer her and the others. Even old Grannie cheered up to the sound of "When ye gang awa', Jamie," an old favourite of her youth. It was easy without offence or suspicion to pass to hymns that might leave some ray of comfort in sorrowful hearts, and to get in a few words about the bourne "where the wicked cease from troubling and the weary are at rest." I could not help considering that probably nowhere in the wide world were there souls more dear to our suffering Saviour than such as these, who were sharing the life He chose on earth. Grannie used to sing, "Oh, let us be joyful, when we meet to part no more," and all were ready for the "Kindly light" to lead them home. I have discovered that this and "Abide with me," with "Jesus, Lover of my soul" are tramps' favourites. Could the deep-seated religious sentiments of the human soul choose better expression?

The little Scotch woman loved some of the "songs of bonnie Scotland." In spite of scrubbing, my friend chimed in, and the hours passed. I grew rested in thought and body. Then our taskmistress appeared just as the floor was finished; she had forgotten the store room, it was locked up and not cleaned. She chose my poor weary friend, but I could not stand it, and volunteered instead. I had watched till I knew how, so I set to work with a will and acquired a new accomplishment, how to scrub a floor with sand and soft soap! My performance "gave satisfaction." At last all was finished, and we awaited the next meal, not with eagerness, for the third time of gruel and dry bread "pays for all," but at any rate with hunger. It was a long, long wait from twelve dinner to somewhere about six. A slender breakfast at six, dinner at twelve, and hard work left something lacking; the morning gruel was slightly sour also, and I began to have uncomfortable feelings. Nevertheless, after a seemingly long wait, during which we all grew quite "chummy," and I extracted much information and confirmation of personal histories and social condition, at last supper arrived, and I finished the gruel with appetite, but could not, without a drink, eat dry bread.

Then another wait. We all grew tired to utter weariness. I longed even for a plank bed. We sat in various listless attitudes, half starved, cold, too weary to talk. There was nothing to see, skylighted as the room was, nothing to do but to pick oakum, which still lay in measured heaps on the floor, no literature save the "regulations for tramps" on the walls.

This, then, was the kind of thing which left "no necessity for men to sleep in the brickfields!" I questioned the married women, none of them knew anything of any relaxation of rules. Evidently in their world it was not a matter of public knowledge that a man might enter earlier and go out after one night.[90]

At last it was bed time once more, we were "officered" to our uneasy couches. We were allowed to remove our shawls to the room where we slept—a great boon, as I smuggled mine into bed, covering my bare arms, and securing a little more comfort. But I was sore from the night before, and no position gave ease. Being near the week-end few came in, as it meant an extra day's detention, but the same ordering and bumping went on. I shall never forget my next door neighbour who came in rather late and was near enough to touch. She was a respectable woman of the barmaid class, slightly grey, and therefore rather old for employment. She was well dressed. She was out of a place, and had applied at a Shelter too late to be admitted, and was sent here. She had never been in such a place before, and her astonishment at the conditions amounted almost to horror. We told her how to make the most of her bed—none of us near her were asleep. She twisted and turned her wet, grey head on the hard pillow, sneezing with a commencing cold. She sat up and lay down. "My God!" I heard her say, "one can't sleep in this place." And with reason, for though the interruptions were not so numerous, they were sufficient to effectually break sleep. Grannie did not groan so much, but she got out of bed, was scolded, and had to be helped in. "Don't be so soft," I heard the hard official say, as she gave an involuntary small scream when one of her aching limbs was touched. It was true she had given trouble, but she was old, feeble, and ailing. It would not have been hard to be kind. I was myself by this time ill. The last meal of gruel coming as a distasteful meal on a tired body had not been digested. Sickness came upon me, and I had to be a disturber of the peace by three times getting up, and parting with my hardly-earned supper. Each time, paddling over great bare spaces in scanty attire, I grew colder, but I was in terror of attracting the attention of the officer, being considered ill and detained. Anything rather than another day in such a place of torture. As on the night before, some slept the sleep of utter weariness, most groaned and twisted, some lay awake. I never understood so well the joy of the first dim daylight, the longing of those who "wait for the morning." A woman sat up. "I'm dying of hunger," she said. It was the poor woman condemned to stay five days. What would she be at the end? I felt a mere wreck. Only two days ago I was in full health and vigour. It was no absolute cruelty, only the cruel system, the meagre and uneatable diet, the lack of sufficient moisture to make up for loss by perspiration, two almost sleepless nights, "hard labour" under the circumstances. Before me lay home and friends, a loving welcome, good food, sympathy, and rest. What about my poor sisters? "I have nobody, nobody in the wide world; I wish I had," said the poor soul next me, new to such treatment. A good-looking woman beyond had never been in before. I shuddered for those I should leave behind, new to such conditions.

Is this the treatment England gives in Christ's name to His destitute poor? What if some are "sinners." He chose such, and "Inasmuch as ye did it not to one of the least of these my brethren, yet did it not to me." My heart burned within me. Thank God for every bit of suffering that I may bring home the truth. A public newspaper states, "The guardians only hear ex-parte statements, those of the men themselves." Supposing they speak true!