Known to the Police

by Thomas Holmes

I was lost in wonder and imagination, and forgot the nasty cigar-ends in picturing to myself the world of beauty that had worn and the delicate hands that had adjusted those hairpins. But the hairpins were not alone in their glory. Hatpins claimed attention, too. Cruel, fiendish things they looked, as they lay closely packed in several boxes, with their beaded ends and sharp, elongated points. I turned quickly from these, for I knew only too well the fresh terror they added to life—especially to a policeman's life. So I proceeded to examine the next department—"babies' comforters"—with mingled feelings: two large boxes full of them, horrible things!—ivory rings, bone rings, rubber rings, and vulcanite rings, with their suction tubes attached, made to deceive infant life, and to enable English babies to feed on air. Some day a similar collection may form a valuable addition to a museum, illustrating the fraud practised on babies in the twentieth century.

I forgot the presence of poor asthmatical Mrs. Pinchbeck on her red chair, for the shelves that were fixed on the walls attracted me. These were heavily laden with glass jars and bottles of various sizes containing specimens of bread, sugar, tea, coffee, butter, and cheese of varying dates. "Bread, 1856, 10d. per loaf, Crimean War." "Tea, 1856, 4s. 6d. per pound." "Sugar (brown), 1856, 6d. per pound." So ran some of the descriptions that were attached to the various jars. But I had to leave the examination of these till another time, when still more wonders were revealed, of which I must tell you later.

Bidding Mrs. Pinchbeck "Good-afternoon," and promising her another visit, I left her, for other suffering and troubled folk needed me. Alas! that was the only time I saw the poor woman, for not much longer was she able to rise from her bed, and in a few weeks there was a strange funeral, at which Jonathan was chief mourner, and he was left alone and friendless.

Hard times followed; old age crept on. Failing health and lack of nourishment combined to make Jonathan of less value in the labour market, so by-and-by he faced starvation. But by no means did he give up collecting; his useless stores grew and grew until he had no longer room to store them. Then he sold his pile of nails for a few shillings; his screws and tips followed suit, and some of the fruits of his industry vanished.

Sad to relate, a worse fate befell his cigar-ends, and the great triumph of his life—his "monumental cross"—brought a second great sorrow into the poor fellow's life. It occurred to him that he might obtain money by exhibiting his work, so he hired a barrow, and, packing his crosses on it, went into the streets to attract attention and collect coppers. He secured plenty of attention, especially from boys, who made a "mark" of the old man; ribald youth scoffed at him; policemen moved him on—but the other "coppers" came not to him. The barrow cost one shilling per week. A crisis had arrived; he must sell his tobacco. At eleven o'clock one night I found him at my front door. There stood the barrow and the tobacco. He wanted my advice about selling it. It was the only thing to do. He had received notice to leave his room, and must look for a smaller home at a less rental. The next day slowly and reluctantly Jonathan pushed his barrow to Shoreditch. He had found a wholesale tobacconist who might buy his tobacco at a price. "Bring it in," he said, "and I will look at it." Jonathan took it in. Jonathan was taken in, too. "Leave it here till to-morrow, and I will decide," said the merchant. It was left, and Jonathan pushed an empty barrow on the return journey. His room seemed empty that night; his wife was dead, and now his monumental cross was gone. The next day he visited the tobacco merchant, and found an officer of the Inland Revenue waiting for him. The merchant had informed. Pinchbeck's tobacco was impounded, and he himself was threatened with proceedings for attempting to sell tobacco without holding a licence. In vain the poor old man protested; in vain he argued and proved that his tobacco had paid duty, and that the State had received its dues. His tobacco was detained, and Jonathan saw it no more. Poor old Jonathan! How he cried over it! But the next day he turned up at the police-court and asked for a summons against the Inland Revenue for detaining his tobacco, and here again disappointment awaited him, for the magistrate had no jurisdiction. It was a heavy blow to him; his heart appeared to be broken, and all interest in life seemed to have gone. I sympathized with him, and did my best to cheer him. He moved to a smaller home, again parting with some of his museum. For a brief time he struggled on, but he became ill.

For some months he lay in the workhouse infirmary, alone and unfriended, and I thought the streets of London would know his peering eyes no more. But there was more vitality in the old man than I expected. One cold winter's day, when the snow was falling, I met a melancholy procession of sandwich-men on Stamford Hill, among whom was Jonathan. The wind buffeted him, and his hands and his face were blue with cold. "I could not stand it any longer; I should have died if I had not come out," he told me when I asked as to his welfare. He gave me his address, and the quaint old man and I were again on visiting terms. Where he had bestowed his strange collection during his sojourn in the workhouse I never ascertained, but the bulk of it was in his new home. His things had been taken care of, he said, but no more. "How are you going to live?" "They allow me three shillings and sixpence from 'the house,' and I must pick up the rest." So he proceeded to pick up, for his health improved and his collection grew; but he did not pick up much money. The spring came, and Jonathan grew young again. One fine morning I met him, looking quite fresh and debonair. "Why, Jonathan," I said, "I really did not know you. How well and fresh you look!" "Yes, bless the Lord! He gives me strength to walk." "I wonder why He does that?" I foolishly said; but I expected the answer I got. "To find things that nobody else would find, and to prove that teetotallers are fools," he said. "But, Jonathan, I am a teetotaller." "I can't help that, can I? Look here, you can tell me how many gallons of water there is in a barrel of beer, but you can't tell me how much paper you bought when you thought you were buying tea and sugar." I humbly admitted my ignorance, and asked him what he was finding. "All sorts of things. Come in and see them when you are down my way." I went again to his "palace of varieties," and saw a cross of about eighteen inches high, standing in a neat wooden base, which was painted a bright vermilion, and a smaller cross made of cigarette-ends standing beside it. Pointing to the latter, he said: "That's to lie on my breast when I am in my coffin, and that" (the bigger one) "is to lie on my coffin when I'm buried. I don't want any wreaths." Small chance of wreaths at a parish funeral when this, our dear brother, is unceremoniously committed to the earth, I thought; but he was fearful about his tobacco. "You won't tell, will you? Don't give the show away," he said. I advised him not to offer the tobacco for sale this time. "Not me; I'll die first," he promptly replied.

His cigar and cigarette ends amounted to over thirty pounds in weight, which he had pressed into various shapes. A strange piece of architecture, with many turrets and towers, all shining like burnished silver, claimed attention. "What have you here?" "Five hundred empty milk-tins. I have saved them all. They have all been full. I always use the 'Milkmaid' brand." "I suppose you alter your plan of your building sometimes?" "Oh yes," he said; "I make cathedrals sometimes."

Twenty-four flat cardboard boxes, with covers on, attracted me. "What have you got in these boxes?" "Ah! I have got something to show you," and he proceeded to take off the lids. One look dazzled me, for never in my life had I seen such a weird combination of brilliant colours; the old vermilion seemed quite pale and insipid in comparison. Blues, greens, yellows, and pinks of every shade predominated; but almost every other colour and shade of colour was represented, and their combined effect was stupendous. Some of the boxes were full of little cubes, others of narrow strips; some full of flat pieces about one inch square; others with the same substance graduated in different sizes. "All orange-peel, Mr. Holmes, picked up in the streets; all of it would have been wasted but for me." "But what good is it now?" I asked. He looked sadly at me, and said: "Good, good! Why, it shows what can be done." Whether it was worth the doing did not concern him; but my question had offended him, so I had to make peace. Half a crown soothed his wounded feelings. I then asked him how he did it all. "Picked 'em up, flattened 'em, cut 'em up, and coloured 'em," was all I could get out of him. "Do you know what's in these boxes?" producing four boxes of similar pattern, and opening them. They contained small cubes of material, and their colours, at any rate, were of modest hue. I confessed again my ignorance. "Taste!" I was much alarmed, but I tasted. "Potatoes?" "Right," he said. "That's how I save all my potatoes. They do to put in my broth." "But how do you get them all to this size and colour?" I asked. "That's my secret," he said. I asked him if he was saving "tops and bottoms" now. "Only the new uns; I have made use of the old uns. I'll show you." He went on his knees, and from a store under his bed he produced several three-pound glass jars full of some brown meal, of varying degrees of coarseness. "All good—all good food! Microbes can't live in bread fifty years old. These are 'tops and bottoms.'" He had broken up his old bread, pounded it with a hammer, put the crumbs through different sized sieves, and stored the resulting material in glass jars. "Beats Quaker Oats, Grape Nuts, and 'Sunny Jim,'" he said. "I can stand a siege. I just boil some water, take two spoonfuls of 'Milkmaid,' two tablespoonfuls of 'tops and bottoms,' and I have good milk porridge in three minutes. I have a pot of Bovril, too, and when I want some soup, hot water, Bovril, and desiccated potatoes or potato-powder give it to me. The old man is not such a fool as people think!" But again he put me into a tight place. He wanted me to buy, or find customers for, his granulated "tops and bottoms." He felt sure if people only knew how good and nice the "food" was, they would buy it readily.

I had to change the subject, and asked him what was in the box over the head of his bed, so securely attached to the wall. I was just going to handle it when he sang out: "Don't touch it! don't touch it, or you'll blow up the whole house!" "What is it?" "Explosives," he said. "I may want them; I'm not going to the workhouse again." I did not touch them, but got away as far as possible. Jonathan then produced an ordinary medicine-bottle, about half full of some liquid. "That's the last bottle the doctor ever sent my wife, and half of it was enough. I'm saving the other half; I may require it. No workhouse or parish doctor for me." I began to feel creepy; but the old man continued: "Lift that little bucket out of the corner, and tell me what's in it." I lifted it, and examined it, and said: "It is three parts full of charcoal, on the top of which is a quantity of sulphur. There is a piece of candle fixed in the sulphur and a box of matches attached to the handle of the bucket."

"Right," he said. "When my food is gone, I may put that bucket beside my bed, lock my door, light that candle, and lie down to sleep. I may do that, or I may blow the show up, or I may take that half-bottle of medicine. I haven't decided yet."