Known to the Police

by Thomas Holmes

And right up to the verge of eternity the fear of being homeless haunts the poor. Let one instance suffice. I was visiting a young married woman whose husband had been sent to prison for some months. She lived in one room, for which she paid, or should have paid, four shillings and sixpence weekly. The street was a very poor street, and the house a very small house. It stood, without any forecourt, close up to the street pavement. While I was speaking to the young woman a message came that the landlady, who lived downstairs, wanted to speak to me; so down the narrow stairs I went. There being only one room below, I rapped at the door, and a very queer voice told me to "Come in." I went in, and found a very small room, occupied chiefly by a bed, a small table, and several broken chairs. On the bed lay an old woman. Her face was puckered with age, her forehead was deeply furrowed, her eyes were dim, and the hands lying on the quilt were more like claws than human hands. As I stood over her, she looked up and said: "Are you Mr. Holmes? I want my rent." Her voice was so strange and thin that I had some difficulty in understanding her, but I found that the tenant upstairs owed her five weeks' rent, and that, now her husband was in prison, the poor old woman was afraid of losing it. As the matter seemed to trouble her greatly, I told her that I would pay the arrears of her rent. "But I want it now," she went on. "The collector is coming to-morrow, and I shall be put out—I shall be put out." I stroked her thin hair, and told her that I would call early the next morning and give her the money. But the poor woman looked worried and doubtful. I called early the next morning, and found the old woman expecting me. "Have you brought my rent?" were the first words I heard on entering the room. I took up one of her thin hands and opened it, and put a sovereign in it. "That is a sovereign," I said. She held it up, and tried to look at it; but she was not satisfied, for she said to her daughter, who was standing by: "Jane, is this a sovereign?" When Jane assured her that it was, the old hand closed convulsively upon it. "Hold out your other hand," I said. She held it open, and I counted five shillings into it. Then that hand closed, and the old head lay a bit closer to the pillow, and an expression of restful satisfaction passed over her withered face. A week later I called at the same house, but the old woman was not there, neither had she been "put out." She had paid the rent-collector when he called, and her rent-book was duly signed; but the Great Collector had not forgotten her, for He also had called and given her a receipt in full. Her worries were ended.

If we would but think—think of the effect that such anxieties must have upon the present and future generations—I believe that we should realize that first and foremost of all questions affecting the health and happiness of the nation stands the one great question of "housing the very poor"; for the chivalry of our men, the womanliness of our women, the sweetness of our daughters, and the brave hearts of our lads depend upon it.

But if the fear of being "put out" has its terrors, none the less has the continuous occupation of one room its attendant evils. It is so easy for humanity to get used to wretched homes and vile environments, so easy to get accustomed to dirt, thick air, and insanitary conditions, that one does not wonder that poor people who have lived for years under such conditions prefer those conditions to any other. And this holds true even with those who have known the bracing effect of cold water on their bodies, and have felt the breath of God in their lungs. The return path to dirt is always alluring to the human body. Time and again I have gone into places where I hardly dared to breathe, and in which I could only with the greatest difficulty stay for a few minutes; and when I have sometimes ventured to open a window a look of astonishment crossed the faces of those I had called on, for even the thick atmosphere had become natural.

And other results follow—mental as well as physical. To become, through bad but frightfully dear housing, gradually used to dirt and bad air, till these are looked upon as natural, carries along with it, as part and parcel of itself, another deadening influence. Filth raises no feeling of disgust; high rents produce no sense of injustice, no feelings of resentment: for the poor become absolutely passive. Yes, and passive in more ways than one; for they, without question or demur, accept any payment that may be given them for such services as they can render. Inevitably, they become the prey of the sweater, and work for endless hours at three halfpence per hour; and if the payment for the work they do should, without their permission, be reduced, it only means that a couple of hours more must be added to the long day already worked.

It is this passivity of the poor that appals me. Their negative virtues astonish me, for I find in them no bitterness, no sense of wrong, no idea of rebellion, no burning resentment—not even the feeling that something is wrong, though they know not what. Their only ambition is to live their little lives in their very little homes; to be ready weekly with their four shillings for their wretched room in a wretched house; to have plenty of poorly-paid work, though they sit up all night to do it; and to sit in poverty and hunger when sufficient work is not to hand, to suffer silently, to bear with passive heroism, and to die unburied by the parish.

Such is the life of many London home-workers, of whom some are my personal friends. But what becomes of this life? The death of aspiration. A machine-like perseverance and endurance is gradually developed; but the hope of better things dies: hope cannot exist where oxygen is absent. Then comes the desire to be let alone, and alone to die.

I have met women who had become so used to the terrible conditions under which they lived that no amount of persuasion could induce them to move out of those conditions. Again I draw upon my experience.

One cold day in February a young married man was charged with stealing a piece of pork. I had some conversation with him, and he told me that he was out of work, that his wife and children were starving, and that his widowed mother, who lived in the same house, was in much the same condition. He gave me their address—a poor street in Haggerston—so I visited the family. It was a terrible street even for Haggerston, but it was crowded with humanity. I found the house, and went up the rotten staircase to the first-floor back. There I found the prisoner's wife, sitting at a machine making babies' boots. In the room was an old broken perambulator, in which were two children, one asleep and the other with that everlasting deceit, a "baby's comforter," in its mouth. As the child fed on the thick air it looked at me with wondering eyes, and the mother kept on working. Presently she stopped and answered my questions. Yes, it was true her husband was out of work. He was good to her, and a sober, industrious man. They paid three and sixpence weekly for their room, when they could. Would I excuse her? She must get on with her work; she wanted to take it in. I excused her, and, leaving her a few shillings, went in search of the older woman.

I found her in another small room; but, small as the room was, there were two beds in it, which were covered with match-boxes. A small table and two old chairs completed the furniture. She was seated making match-boxes as I entered, and I saw her hands moving with that dreadfully automatic movement that has so often made me shudder.

She looked up at me, but on she went. I spoke to her of her son, told her my business, and ultimately sat down and watched her. Poor old woman! She was fifty-six, she told me. She might have been any age over seventy. She was a widow. She had lived in that room thirteen years, having come to it soon after her husband's death. Whilst I was speaking to her she got up from her boxes, took a small saucepan off the miserable fire, and out of it took some boiled rice, put it in an old saucer, sat down, and ate it. It was her dinner.