Known to the Police

by Thomas Holmes

I found my objective at last, and I entered a queer room possessing two doors—one the ordinary street door; the other, of which the upper part was glass, opened into an outhouse at a right angle with the house door. This annexe had once been a greengrocer's shop, and fronted a side-street; now it was used as a coal and coke depot, and to it resorted the poor for their winter's supply of coal and coke.

The proprietor was ill, had been ailing for years, and now the shadows of eternity hovered around him. It was afternoon, and he was resting. I sat talking with his wife, an elderly woman, who sat at a machine making a new pair of knickers out of an old garment for a neighbour who had many children, the while a girl waited to have a new frock made out of an old dress that had been purchased probably at a street causeway auction, when, "A penn'orth of coal, please, Mrs. Jenkins!" The voice came from the coal depot. Mrs. Jenkins got up from her machine. "John, can you come down and attend to the shop?" I heard a step on the bedroom floor above me, and presently John, weak and gasping, descended the stairs, passed through the little room and through the glass door, and served the pennyworth of coal; came back, and, delivering the penny to his wife, gasped his way upstairs again. "How much coal do you give for a penny?" I asked Mrs. Jenkins. "Six pounds." "Why, that is above one shilling and sixpence halfpenny per hundredweight—nearly thirty-two shillings per ton," I said. "Yes, sir, it is dear buying it by penn'orths, but I can't sell it any cheaper." "How much do you give for a ton?" I asked, for I had not then been in the coal depot, or I need not have asked. "Oh, sir, we never get a ton; I buy it by the hundredweight from the trolly-man, and give one and fourpence the hundredweight." "Do you get full weight from the trolly-man?" "Well, we don't get anything over; but the London County Council has looked after them so sharply that they dare not give us short weight now." "But there is some dirt and slack in every sack you buy." "Yes, but I burn that myself with a bit of coke." She then continued: "I wish the poor people would always buy fourteen pounds." "Why?" "Well, it would be better for them, you see; we only charge them twopence farthing for fourteen pounds, so it comes cheaper to them." "Yes," I said, "they would save one halfpenny when they had bought eight lots of coal." "Yes, sir. I make just twopence on a hundredweight when they buy it like that." "No," I said, "you don't, for you cannot make eight complete lots out of one sack."

"Fourteen pounds of coal, please, Mrs. Jenkins!" Again a voice came from the depot. "John! John!" Again John came wearily downstairs to weigh the coal. He returned with twopence halfpenny, which he handed to his wife, and said: "A farthing change."

Mrs. Jenkins searched her small pile of coppers, but failed to find a farthing. "Is it Mrs. Brown?" she asked her husband. "Yes," was the reply. "Oh, then give her the halfpenny back, and tell her to owe me the farthing." John went into the shop, taking the halfpenny with him, and I heard a discussion going on, after which John returned with the coin, and said: "She won't take it." But Mrs. Brown followed him into the room with her fourteen pounds of coal in a small basket. "No, Mrs. Jenkins, I can't take it; I owe you two farthings now. If you keep the ha'penny I shall only owe you one, and I'll try and pay that off next time." "Never mind what you owe me, Mrs. Brown; you take the ha'penny. You have little children, and have no husband to work for you like I have," was Mrs. Jenkins's reply. But Mrs. Brown was not to be put down, so after a protracted discussion the halfpenny remained in the possession of Mrs. Jenkins, and poor feeble John retired to rest.

I sat wondering at it all, quite lost in thought. Presently Mrs. Jenkins said: "I wish Mrs. Brown had taken that ha'penny." "Why?" I said. "Well, you see, she has little children who have no father, and they are so badly off." "But you are badly off, too. Your husband is ill, and ought to be in the hospital; he is not fit to be about." "I rest him all I can, but this afternoon I have these knickers and frock to make; that work pays better than coal when I can get it." "How much rent do you pay?" "Fifteen shillings and sixpence a week, but I let off seven and sixpence, so my rent comes to eight shillings." "But you lose your tenant sometimes, and the rooms are empty?" "Yes." "And sometimes you get a tenant that does not pay up?" "Yes." "And sometimes you allow poor women to have coal on credit, and you lose in that way?" "Yes," she said, and added slowly: "I wish I could have all that is owing to me." "Show me some of your debts." We went into the coal depot. "I have had to stop that woman," she said, pointing to a name and a lot of figures chalked up on a board. She owes me one and elevenpence farthing." I reckoned up the account. "Quite correct," I said.

"She had sixteen lots of coal for one and elevenpence farthing; she can't pay me at all now, she is so far behind. I ought to have stopped her before, but I did not like to be hard on her." Several other "chalked up" accounts confronted me—one for sixpence, another for ninepence—but that one and elevenpence farthing was the heaviest account. It was too pitiful; I could inquire no further.

The difficulty of obtaining even minute quantities of coal constitutes one of the great anxieties of the very poor, and exposes them to unimaginable suffering and hardship.

To poor old women with chilly bones and thin blood, who especially need the glow and warmth of a substantial fire, the lack of coal constitutes almost, and in many cases quite, tragedy.

The poorest class of home-workers, who require warmth if their fingers are to be nimble and their boxes or bags are to be dried, must have some sort of a fire, even if it be obtained at the expense of food. Small wonder, then, that their windows are seldom opened, for the heat of the room must not be dissipated; they must be thrifty in that respect. During the winter, generally in January, I set out on a tour of discovery, my object being to find out old widows who manage to keep themselves without parish relief, and get their little living by making common articles for everyday use. Formerly I experienced great difficulty in finding the brave old things; I have no difficulty now, for at a day's notice I can assemble five hundred self-supporting widows to whom a single hundredweight of coal would loom so large that it would appear a veritable coal-mine.

So I ask my readers to accompany me on one of these expeditions—in imagination, of course. Come, then, through this side-door, for it stands open, though not invitingly so, for the stairs are uncarpeted and dirty and the walls are crumbling and foul.