But the case is very different with the half imbeciles or the half mad. Short terms of imprisonment with short periods of hopeless, useless liberty and an occasional spell in the workhouse constitute the circle of their lives; and a vicious circle it is. Can any life be more pitiable? Sane enough to know that they are not quite sane, insane enough to have no wish to control their animal or vicious instincts. Possessing no education, strength or skill, of no possible use in industrial life, with no taste for decency or social life; sleeping by day in our parks, and by night upon the Embankment. But they mate; and as like meets with like the result may be imagined! Here again we are paying for our neglect of many serious matters. Bad housing, overcrowding, incessant work by the mothers whilst bearing children, drinking habits among the parents, insufficient food for the children, endless anxieties and worries. All these things and more amongst that portion of the nation which produces the largest families; what wonder that many incapable bodies and minds result!
But if civilisation allows all this, civilisation must pay the penalty, which is not a light one, and continue to have the miserables upon the Embankment.
Have we no pity! no thought for the next generation, no concern for ourselves! No! I do not recommend a lethal chamber, but I do strongly advise permanent detention and segregation for these low types of unfortunate humanity. Nothing less will avail, and expensive though it might be for a time, it would pay in the near future, and would be at once an act of mercy and justice.
Yes, on the Thames Embankment extremes meet, the ages are bridged over, for the products of our up-to-date civilisation stand side by side with the products of primeval habits and nomadic life.
CHAPTER IV. LODGING-HOUSES
The inmates of the underworld lodging-houses are a queer and heterogeneous lot; but they are much to be preferred to the sleepers out; because rascally though many of them are, there is a good deal of self-reliance and not a little enterprise amongst them. By hook and crook, and, it is to be feared, mostly by crook, they obtain sufficient money for food and lodging, and to this extent they are an improvement upon the sleepers out. They have, too, some pluck, perseverance and talents that, rightly applied, might be of considerable benefit to the community. But having got habituated to the liberty of common lodging-houses, and to the excitement of getting day by day just enough for each day's need, though sometimes fasting and sometimes feasting, the desire for settled home life and for the duties of citizenship has vanished. For with the money to pay night by night for their lodgings, responsibility to rent and tax collector ends.
I must allow some exceptions, for once every year there comes upon thousands of them the burden of finding five shillings to pay for the hawker's licence that provides them with the semblance of a living, or an excuse for begging. After much experience of this class, including many visits to common lodging-houses, and some friendships with the inmates, I am sure that the desire to be untrammelled with social and municipal obligation leads a great percentage of the occupants to prefer the life to any other. They represent to some extent in this modern and industrial age the descendants of Jonadab, the son of Rechab, with this exception, they are by no means averse to the wine-cup. It is to be feared that there is a growth in this portion of our community, for every scheme for providing decent lodgings for casually homeless men is eagerly taken advantage of by men who might and who ought to live in homes of their own, and so fulfil the duties of decent citizenship. In this respect even Lord Rowton's estimable lodging-houses, and those, too, of our municipal authorities prove no exception, for they attract numbers of men who ought not to be there, but who might, with just a little more self-reliance and self-respect, live comfortably outside.
But I pass on to the common lodging-houses that accommodate a lower class than is found in municipal or Rowton houses. Probably none, or at any rate very few, of my readers have had a practical experience of common lodging-houses. I have, so therefore I ask them to accompany me to one of them.
In a dingy slum stand a number of grimy houses that have been converted into one big house. The various doorways have been blocked and one enlarged entrance serves.