"'My wife is lying dead in the house, and the landlord threatens to eject me at twelve o'clock if I am not out. What can I do?' Thus asked a respectable-looking working man of Mr. d'Eyncourt at Clerkenwell Police-Court. 'Has he given you notice?' 'Yes; but how can I go just now? The funeral is to-morrow, and I have offered to go on Wednesday, but he says he will put me in the street to-day.' 'Well, he's legally entitled to do so, I am afraid. I can do nothing.' 'I thought that perhaps you might ask him to let me stay for a day or two.' 'No, that is a matter for you. I cannot interfere,' the magistrate observed in conclusion."
"London Land without an Owner.
"Mr. H. Sherwin White requested Mr. Marsham at Bow Street Police-Court to appoint someone under the Lands Clauses Consolidation Act to determine the value of the forecourts of five houses in Coldharbour Lane, Brixton, which had been required for tramway purposes. He added that the owner of the houses could not be found. Mr. Marsham appointed Mr. A. L. Guy to be valuer."
CHAPTER IX THE HOOLIGANISM OF THE POOR
Present-day excitements have killed the "hooligan" scare. Good nervous people now sleep comfortably in their beds, for the cry of "The hooligans! the hooligans!" is no longer heard in our land. Yet, truth to tell, the evil is greater now than when sensational writers boomed it. It grows, and will continue to grow, until the conditions that produce it are seriously tackled by the State. I must confine myself to the hooliganism of the poor. Of the hooliganism of undergraduates, medical students, stockbrockers, and politicians I say nothing. Of Tommy Atkins on furlough or of Jack ashore I wish to be equally silent. But of the class, born and bred in London slums, who do no regular work, but who seem to live on idleness and disorder, I desire to speak plainly—plainly, too, as to the conditions that are largely responsible for the disorderly conduct of the rising youth.
A large number of undoubtedly good people think it is easy to cure by punitive methods. I do not. "A policeman behind every lamp-post and the lash—the lash!" cried a notable divine during a never-to-be-forgotten week when he edited an evening paper. Such was his recipe! For months the cat with nine tails was a favourite theme, and all sorts of people caught the infection, and there was a great cry and commotion raised and sustained by a sensational but altogether inaccurate press. Every assault committed by a labouring man, every bit of disorder in the streets, if caused by the poor and ignorant, was a signal for the cry "The hooligan again!" Rubbish! But the people believed it, and so to some extent our level-headed and kind-hearted magistrates caught the spirit of the thing, and proceeded to impose heavier sentences on boys charged with disorderly conduct in the streets. But this was not enough, for the Home Secretary (Mr. Ritchie) in the House of Commons, in reply to a question about youthful hooligans, said it was thought that the magistrates had been too lenient with them, and stated that the police had orders to charge those young gentlemen on indictment, so that they might not be dealt with summarily, but committed for trial. In other words, they were to take from the magistrates the power of so-called lenient punishment, and have them tried by judge and jury. Very good, but what good longer terms of imprisonment would do, the Home Secretary did not say; and as to the magistrates, they can be severe enough, though they do know when to be lenient, and in aggravated cases they already commit for trial.
Profoundly I wish that all Home Secretaries would exercise their minds on the causes that lead to youthful hooliganism, and do something to remove them. It were better far than taking steps to secure more severe punishment. Such talk to me seems callous and cruel, for punitive methods will never eradicate the instincts that lead to disorderly conduct in the streets among the "young gentry" of the poor. I must confess to a feeling of discomfort when I see a boy of sixteen sent to a month's imprisonment for disorderly conduct in the streets. It is true that he has been a nuisance to his elders, and has bumped against them in running after his pals. Equally true that he uses language repulsive to ears polite; but to him it is ordinary language, to which he has been accustomed his life through. But I am afraid it is equally true that similar offences committed by others in a better position would be more leniently dealt with. Would anyone suggest that a public-school boy, or a soldier on furlough, or a young doctor, or an enthusiastic patriot, should be committed for trial on a like charge? I trow not. Allowances are made, and it is right they should be made. I claim these allowances for the poor and the children of the poor.
Moreover, if these "young gentry" are to be consigned in wholesale fashion to prison, will it lessen the evil? I think not. On the contrary, it will largely increase it. Some of them will have lost the moderate respectability that stood for them in place of character; many of them will lose their work, and will join the increasing army of loafers; but all of them will lose their fear of prison, that fear of the unknown that is the greatest deterrent from crime and disorder. Familiarize these "young gentry" with prison, and it is all over with them. The sense of fear will depart, and to a dead certainty more serious disorder and grosser crime will follow. Undoubtedly many of them will find prison quarters preferable to their own homes, and though they may resent the loss of liberty, they will find some comfort in the fact that they do not have to share with four others an apology for a bed, fixed in an apology for a room, of which the door cannot be opened fully because the bedstead prevents it.