During the afternoon one poor woman had said, "If only the rich guardians, and the heavy ratepayers, knew how their money was spent, and how us poor things had to live, they wouldn't allow it." They felt bitterly the irony of so many officials being paid to order them about, and get the maximum of work out of them while they were practically starved. The conclusion of the whole matter is, the more rigidly the system is enforced in its entirety, the more hardly it presses on the destitute poor, while it makes no provision for their need. It is not even preventive, and it is costly.[91] Morning dawned slowly as I pondered, and the welcome call came. My neighbour slept, her face drawn in sleep as if with suffering, her profile and grey, tossed hair as she lay on her back, as the easiest position, an appeal of sorrow to the eye of the Watcher of men. She woke with a start and moan.
No help for it. "You women all get up, be quick now; be quick and hurry up, Grannie." Short, sharp, decisive marching orders. Sick and shivering, with aching head and body sore from head to foot, I did my best to hide any sign of illness that might come between me and liberty. My companion suffered also from violent headache, neuralgic pains, and an aggravated cold.[92] Pollie's face was drawn and tired. No one complained much. I heard only one grumble at having to wash an already smarting face with soft soap. One produced a precious bit of white soap and lent it—a kindly deed. Grannie got under weigh with many a groan, very slowly. "Hurry up, women; three of you have not put your boards up. Now then, Granny, don't be all day." We will pardon her, for she has been on duty all night, and is also tired; but surely the woman who said, "Come, now, you needn't be so knotty with us," spoke true. We had little chance or time to speak much. It was only the early cold grey dawn of a winter morning, but already the message had come up that husbands were waiting. Gruel and bread for the fourth time. No one going out did more than pretend to eat it, some pocketed the bread. Neither my friend nor I could have touched it if you had offered us a sovereign—my soul loathed it so I could hardly bear to look at it.
The poor woman condemned vainly hoped for release; she wept, but this only hardened the officer. She was not to be "come over" this way. "Don't you believe her." Grannie must swathe her poor old legs and go; she had better get into the workhouse. We had to leave them to their fate. I shall never forget the last few moments of waiting. A raging passion for freedom took possession of me. I dare not ask to go a moment before I was ordered to for fear lest it should be construed as "impudence." May be I wrong the officer, but she interpreted so easily any appeal as interference. Oh, to be free! Oh, to lie down anywhere under God's free sky, to suffer cold and hunger at His hand. "It is better to fall into the hand of God than the hand of man." We both agreed we would face a common lodging-house and its pests, or even the danger of prison for "sleeping out," rather than pass again through such an experience.[93]
Do I exaggerate? It must be felt to be realised.
At length we escaped with "Pollie," leaving Grannie and the victim with the newcomers. It was very early, and about two hours lay between us and succour; my friend was almost too tired to walk. But God's free air was round us. Thank God for a fine morning! We are "on the road," and nothing in front can be so bad as what lies behind. We are tramps and "mouchers"; we can beg, for we need pity; sing for our living, sell bootlaces, and turn over the money; even if we steal, prison only waits us, and it cannot be worse—our companions, who have tried it, prefer it.[94] One thing we could not do—we could not at this moment work for an honest living. It is physically impossible. By hook or by crook one or two restful nights must be put between us and the past. Strength to work has gone. One might perhaps tramp, for the air is reviving, and people are kind to a wayfarer. Do you wonder at our national tramp manufactories?
For this is what it amounts to. An obsolete system adapted to the times when population was stationary, is supposed to meet the needs of a population necessarily increasingly fluid.
Labour shifts from place to place where it is needed. Individuals drop out or are thrust out. There is never, on any one night, in our great centres of population, sufficient provision for this ebb and flow. The houseless and the homeless are a great multitude, as sheep without a shepherd. Day by day they make a moving procession.[95] The decent man or woman who is stranded joins them, at first with the honest intention of gaining a livelihood. If it cannot be obtained, what is he to do? The common lodging-house can never be a sufficient provision for this need. It would never pay the private owner to provide the maximum number of beds required.[96] Our friend "Pollie" grumbled that in many lodging-houses the price of a decent bed was 6d., and "then you could not be sure it was clean."
What is needed may take away the breath of a conservative public. It is nothing less than the entire sweeping away of the tramp ward, and the substitution of municipal lodging-houses, coupled with strict supervision of all private ones. The maximum need with regard to sleeping accommodation on any one night in a great city must be met. Shelters, sanitary and humane, not charitable institutions, but simply well-managed "working people's hotels," must be run privately and supplemented publicly, providing accommodation for everyone.[97] To meet destitution, these should be supplemented by "relief stations" on the German plan, where supper, bed, and breakfast can be earned. Freedom need not be interfered with beyond demanding work sufficient to pay.[98] Payment should be on the graduated ticket system. The tramp proper hates work. If once a national system sufficient for destitution was inaugurated, the man who will not work could be penalised. A labour colony is his natural destination. The classification of workhouses and their adaptation to various necessarily destitute classes, such as epileptics, feeble minded and aged, might remove much destitution, placing it under humane conditions. But the immediate and crying need is for the abolition of an old, inhumane and insufficient provision for suppression of vagrancy, in favour of adequate provision for the modern fluidity of labour, coupled with honourable relief of destitution, neither degrading nor charitable.[99]