We pass the room on the ground-floor, and observe that it is half workshop and half retail-shop, for old furniture is renovated and placed in the shop-window for sale. Up one flight of unwashed stairs and past another workshop—this time a printer's. Up again! The stairs are still narrow, and the walls are still crumbling, the stairs still unwashed. We pass another workshop, mount more stairs, and then we come to a small landing and some narrow, very narrow, stairs that are scrupulously clean, though innocent of carpet or linoleum.
We are now at the very top of the house and in semi-darkness, but we discover the door of the room we are looking for. On rapping, we are told to "Come in." It is a small attic, just large enough to contain a bed, a table, and a small chest of drawers.
She sat at the table underneath the dormer window, and was busy at work making paper bags: a widow alone in the world, seventy-eight years of age, who had never received one penny from the parish in her life. Take notice of the little bedroom grate. It is a very small one, but you notice it is made much smaller by two pieces of brick being placed in it, one on each side, and between them a very small fire is burning, or trying to burn. She tells us that she gets fivepence per thousand for her paper bags, and that she buys her own paste; that she works for her landlord, who stops her rent every week out of her earnings. She buys her coal by the quarter of a hundredweight, which costs her fivepence; she does not buy pennyworths. Sometimes the men below give her bits of wood, and the printer lets her have scraps of cardboard. She can't do with less than two quarters in the week, it is so cold, but she manages with a bit less in the summer-time. So the brave old woman gabbles on, telling us all we want to know. I produce some warm clothing, and her old eyes glisten; I give her a whole pound of tea in a nice canister, and I think I see tears; but I take her old skinny hand, all covered with paste, and say: "You must buy a whole hundredweight of good coal with that, or give it back to me; you must not use it for anything else." Ah, this was indeed too much for her, and she burst out hysterically: "Oh, don't mock me—a hundredweight of coal! I'll soon have those bricks out."
Come with me into another street. We have no stairs to climb this time, for the house consists of but two stories, and contains but four small rooms. We enter the front room on the ground-floor, and find three old women at work. There being no room or accommodation for us to sit, we stand just inside and watch them as they work. Two are widows bordering on seventy years of age; the other is a spinster of like years. One sits at a machine sewing trousers, of which there is a pile waiting near her. As soon as she has completed her portion of work she passes the trousers on to the other widow, who finishes them—that is, she puts on the buttons, sewing the hem round the bottom of the trousers, and does all the little jobs that must needs be done by hand. When her part of the work is completed, she passes the trousers on to the spinster, who has the heaviest part of the task, for she is the "presser," and manipulates the hot and heavy iron that plays such an important part in the work. Each of them occupies one of the four rooms in the house, but for working purposes they collaborate and use the widow machinist's room; for collaboration increases their earnings and lessens their expenses, for the one room is also used for the preparation and consumption of food. One kettle, one teapot, and one frying-pan do for the three. Old and weak as they are, they understand the value of co-operation and the advantages to be obtained by dividing labour. But they understand something else much better, for "one fire does for the three," and the fire that heats the iron warms the room for three, and boils the kettle for three. Talk about thrift! Was there ever seen that which could eclipse these three old women in the art and virtue of saving? Thrift and economy! Why, the three poor old souls fairly revelled in it. They could give points to any of the professional teachers of thrift who know so much about the extravagance of the poor. One gaslight served for the three, and when a shilling was required to gently induce the automatic gas-meter to supply them with another too brief supply of light, the shilling came from common funds; and when the long day's work was done, and the old widow machinist prepared to lie down in the little bed that had been erstwhile covered with trousers, the other widow and aged spinster went aloft to their little rooms to light their little lamps and to count themselves happy if they possessed a bit of wood and a few crumbs of coal wherewith to make the morning fire. If not so fortunate, then, late and cold though the night be, they must sally forth to the nearest general shop, and with a few hardly-earned coppers lay in a fresh stock, and return laden with one pint of paraffin oil, one halfpennyworth of firewood, one pennyworth of coal, and most likely with one pennyworth of tea-dust. And in such course their lives will run till eyesight fails or exhausted nature gives way, and then the workhouse waits.
It is the old widow machinist that talks to us, but she keeps on working. Her machine whirrs and creaks and rattles, for it is an old one, and its vital parts are none too good; and the old woman speaks to it sometimes as if it were a sentient thing, and reproves it when a difficulty arises. In her conversation with us frequent interjections are interposed that sometimes appeared uncomplimentary to us: "Now, stupid!" "Ah! there you are at it again!" But when she explained that she was referring to her machine and not to us, we forgave her.
"I have had this machine for twenty-one years, and it has been a good one. I bought it out of my husband's club and insurance money." "How much did you have altogether?" "Twenty pounds, and I paid for his funeral and bought my mourning and this machine, and it's been a friend to me ever since, so I can't help talking to it; but it wants a new shuttle." "How much will that cost?" "Five shillings!" "Let me buy one for you." "I don't want to part with the old one yet. It will perhaps last my time, for I want a new shuttle, too. We are both nearly worn out;" and the machinist kept on with her work, and the other widow with her finishing, and the aged spinster with her pressing.
Oh, brave old women! We are lost in wonder and veneration. Utilitarians and the apostles of thrift tell us that the poor are demoralized by "charity," and of a surety indiscriminate giving without knowledge and personal service is often ill bestowed. But in the presence of three old women possessed of heroic souls, living as they lived, working as they worked, who cares for utilitarianism or political economy either? A fig for the pair of them!
"But," say our teachers, "you are in reality subsidizing their employers, who exploit them and pay them insufficiently." Another self-appointed teacher says: "Ah! but you are only helping them to pay exorbitant rents; the landlord will profit." Who cares? Others, in very comfortable circumstances, who themselves are by no means averse to receiving gifts, say: "Don't destroy the independence of the poor." Wisdom, prudence, political economy, go, hang yourselves! we cry. Our love is appealed to, our hearts are touched, our veneration is kindled, and we must needs do something, though the landlord may profit, though the employer may be subsidized—nay, though we run the terrible risk of tarnishing the glorious privilege and record of these independent old women—a record nearly completed. Help them we must, and we bid defiance to consequences. So we find the "trolly-man," and three separate bags of good coal are borne into three separate rooms. A whole hundredweight for each woman! Where could they put it all? What an orgie of fire they would have! Would the methodical thrift of the old women give way in the face of such a temptation?
We don't care: we have become hardened; and we even promise ourselves that other bags of coal shall follow. Then we examine their tea-caddies, and throw this tea-dust on the fire—a fitting death for it, too—and further demoralize the ancient three with the gift of a pound of good tea, each in a nice cannister, too. A hundredweight of coal and a pound of tea! Why, the teapot will be always in use till the pound is gone. The poor drink too much tea. Perhaps so; but what are the poor to drink? They have neither time, inclination, nor money for the public-house. Coffee is dear if it is to be good. Cocoa is thick and sickly. Water! Their water!—ugh! At present poor old women have the choice of tea or nothing. Then leave them, we beseech you, their teapot, but let us see to it that they have some decent tea. So, with five shillings in silver for each of them, we leave the dauntless three to their fire, their teapots, and wonder, and go into the streets with the feeling that something is wrong somewhere, but what it is and how to right it we know not.
I could, were it necessary, multiply experiences similar to the above, but they would only serve to prove, what I have already made apparent, that the worries and sufferings of the very poor are greatly aggravated by their inability to procure a reasonable supply of coal. Slate-clubs, men's meetings, and brotherhoods have of late years done much to secure artisans and working men who are earning decent wages a supply of good coal all the year round. Weekly payments of one shilling and upwards enable them to lay in a store when coal is cheap—if it is ever cheap—or to have an arrangement with the coal merchant for the delivery of a specified amount every week. People possessed of commodious coal-cellars may buy largely when coal prices are at their lowest; but the poor—the very poor—can neither buy nor store, for they have neither storehouses nor barns. Even if they could, by the exercise of great self-denial, manage to pay a sum of sixpence per week into a local coal-club, they have nowhere to put the supply when sent home to them. They must needs buy in very small quantities only. The advantages of co-operation are not for them, but are reserved for those that are better off. One scriptural injunction, at any rate, the community holds with grim tenacity: "To him that hath it shall be given."