Known to the Police

by Thomas Holmes

Still, she was a good woman, and I can only suppose that privations and disappointments had on the one side embittered her, and on the other had developed a natural feeling until it became a craze, and the idea of being a "lady" dominated her existence.

Some men, too, that have come down are by no means pleasant companions—often the reverse. Several clergymen that I saw much of were too terrible for words, so I pass them; but of one I must tell, for when I called on him in the early afternoon, he was lying on a miserable bed, unwashed, wearing a cassock. Penny packets of cigarettes—five for a penny—were strongly in evidence. There being no chairs in the room, I sat down upon an inverted packing-case.

He rose from his bed, lit another cigarette, and asked me what I wanted. I had previously spoken to his wife, and had made up my mind that she was demented. I had seen a big-headed girl of seventeen, with a vacant face and thick, slobbering lips, nursing and laughing over a little doll. I had also spoken to a cunning-looking boy of fourteen. I had now to speak to a demoralized clergyman.

I felt that a horsewhip was needed more than the monetary help that I was commissioned to offer from friends, on certain conditions being complied with.

He was a choice specimen of manhood: his reading seemed confined to penny illustrated papers of a dubious kind, embellished with questionable pictures. He no sooner learned that friends had empowered me to act for them than his estimate of himself went up considerably. His market value went up also.

Thirty shillings per week was not enough; he was not to be bought at the price. He must also have his wardrobe replenished. The Bishop must find him a curacy. No, he would not leave London. Preaching to intelligent people was his vocation. He was a Welshman, but London was good enough for him. I sat on the box and listened; the vacant-faced girl with her doll sat on another box in front of me; the clergyman in his cassock, cigarette in his fingers while he talked, and in his lips when he was silent, sat on the edge of the bed; and his demented wife stood by.

Such was my introduction to the fellow, of whom I saw much during the next three years; but every time I met him I became the more enamoured of the horsewhip treatment.

For three years he received more than generous help from friends of the Church, who were anxious for his good, and more than anxious that no scandal should come upon the Church they loved. It was all in vain, and the last sight I had of him was in Tottenham, where I studiously avoided him; but, nevertheless, I had opportunities of watching him. He stood outside a public-house. He wore an old clerical coat, green and greasy; his clerical collar was crumpled and dirty; his boots were old and broken, and his trousers were frayed and torn. He had a rough stick in his hand and an old cloth cap on his head. The cunning-looking boy has been in the hands of the police for snatching a lady's purse, and the imbecile girl, now a woman, continues to nurse her doll somewhere in London's abyss; for the demented mother loves her afflicted child, and only death will part them.

Artists are numerous among those who have "come down." I never meet a poor fellow in London's streets carrying a picture wrapped in canvas without experiencing feelings of deepest pity. One look at such a man tells me whether his picture has been done to order, or whether he is seeking, rather than hoping to find, a customer. The former goes briskly enough to his destination, and though he will receive but little payment from the picture-dealer, he sorely needs that little, and hastens to get it.

But the other poor fellow has no objective: he walks slowly and aimlessly about; there is a wistful, shamefaced air about him. When he arrives at a picture-dealer's, he enters with reluctance and timidity. Sometimes broken-down men will hawk their pictures from door to door, and will sell decent pictures, upon which they have spent much time and labour, for a few shillings. Occasionally an alert policeman watches them, and ultimately arrests them for hawking goods and not being in possession of the necessary licence.