Pictures and Problems from London Police Courts

by Thomas Holmes

Another father of this description had induced the State to take charge of three of his boys. One was in a reformatory, one on a ship, and one in an industrial school. But he was not satisfied, for he wanted to get rid of the fourth, and wrote to me. I did not reply, so he came to see me, and gave the boy a terrible character. He told me how happy his other boys were, and what an intense longing this one had to go on a ‘ship.’ I told him to look well after his boy, and that I could not assist him. Some time afterwards the boy was charged with stealing thirty shillings from his employer. He was only twelve, and had not left school, but acted as errand-boy in the evenings and on Saturdays. I found from the boy that he was terribly afraid of being sent to sea; neither did he wish to leave home. He told me also—and I believed him—that for some time past his father had been suggesting to him that he should take some money, and get sent to his brother at the industrial school. The lad followed his father’s advice to the extent of stealing, but it did not turn out as the father wished, for the youngster bought two cheap pistols and a supply of ammunition, and, taking a younger boy with him, went on a hunting expedition in Epping Forest. So long as the money lasted he paid for food and lodgings for both, and they seem to have enjoyed themselves immensely. But even thirty shillings will not last for ever, and poverty compelled the lads to return, when the elder was promptly given into custody. The tradesman did not wish to prosecute, but the father insisted, and told a sad tale to the magistrate about the boy’s misdeeds. But it did not come off, for the magistrate looked upon it as a boyish escapade, and treated him under the First Offenders’ Act, taking the father’s security for the boy.

But even if such parents are balked of their desire, and are compelled to keep their own children, the lot of such children is not favourable to the formation of good character, and sooner or later many of them get again into the hands of the police. The disinclination to take pains to train their children is by no means confined to the poor. It is noticeable also among those who are in better circumstances. Not infrequently I have met with it among educated people. A short time ago I visited a lady and gentleman who lived in their own house, which was expensively furnished. Their son, aged fifteen, was in trouble. They were by no means concerned about him, and told me that it was his look-out if he got into the hands of the police; they had done their duty by him, and had given him a good education. I found that their duty consisted of sending him to a large boarding school at an early age, paying for him till he was fifteen, and then telling him to find some occupation for himself. This he did by becoming an errand-boy at six shillings per week, an elder brother being engaged at a butcher’s shop in a similar capacity, With parents so indifferent, naturally the lad went wrong. Ultimately the father came to the court, and actually pressed for the boy’s committal to a reformatory, a result that would have happened had I not begged the magistrate to let me care for the boy. This was agreed to, and I placed the boy in a better situation, where his education would be of service, and where his future prospects were hopeful. I am glad to say he is doing well so far.

Many parents are equally indifferent, and to tell them that it is their duty, as it ought to be their pleasure, to see that their boys have a suitable start in life almost staggers them. The amount of joy and thrilling happiness that is lost to parents by this one fault alone cannot be conceived; the amount of misery, sorrow, and crime that is substituted is also immeasurable. Worst of all parental vices, most certain in its results, most deadly in its consequences, is the growing one of indifference with regard to their children. Our reformatories are full because of it, countless agencies are called into existence, and vast sums of money are expended in the vain endeavour to undo the evil that it has created. ‘Don’t care’ always comes to a bad end, but ‘don’t care’ in parents is doubly cursed, for it curses both parents and children. If parents would but understand that it is a natural law; from which there is no exemption, that with the measure they mete to their children it shall be measured back to them! But a voice from the dead is almost needed to wake some parents from their gross apathetic idleness with regard to the culture of their children. Were it different, we should not have thousands of boys and girls leaving home at fifteen and sixteen years of age, going to doubtful lodgings and following doubtful occupations. Can any good come if young girls earning six shillings a week leave home and essay to live on their earnings? The worst is sure to happen; it does happen, and ere long they join the ‘unfortunate’ class, and are met with by the score at our police courts. Can any good come if a lad of sixteen, earning twelve shillings a week, leaves home and goes to a men’s lodging-house? Yet thousands of them do it. The worst again is sure to happen, and it does happen: they graduate in crime, and we meet with these by the score at our police courts.

Another course is often followed by these young people; with equally disastrous results, for boys and girls set up homes of their own and commence life on their own account, sometimes going through the form of marriage, oftener not. The home is invariably one room furnished on the hire system. The boy’s twelve shillings and the girl’s six enable them to live for a time, but a baby comes, the girl’s earnings cease, the furniture payments must be kept up. Then comes squalor, misery, and want. The rest can be imagined, and it lasts for life. A young couple of this description, who had lost their home, were found with two children sleeping in a van, and were charged. The husband was twenty-one and the wife nineteen; they had been married three years. They promised to go into the workhouse, and, on being discharged, were escorted thither by the constable who arrested them.

Some time afterward the boy husband waited on me. He had got permission for a day out to look for work; naturally the authorities did not wish to keep him and his family. He wanted some help to enable him to get another home. I offered him help on the conditions that he and the girl separated for a time, he to go to lodgings and to work, his wife also to go to lodgings and to work, I undertaking to pay for the care of the children whilst she was at work, and also promising to help them with some goods in a year’s time if they kept to the agreement. But my conditions were not satisfactory to him. He went back to the workhouse, took his wife and children out, and they were afterwards charged with begging.

I called on the parents of both husband and wife. ‘Oh, he has nothing to do with us,’ said the parents of the former; ‘he left us when he was sixteen.’ ‘What did he leave you for?’ I asked: ‘We had not got room for him,’ I was told. The girl also had left home when she was about fourteen. Neither had the parents room for her. Their story is unfortunately a very common story, for large numbers of boys and girls leave home because there is no room for them. Thousands of working men in London start a married life with an establishment consisting of one room, when with only common prudence they might as readily have two or three rooms decently furnished. Life is passable the first year, and during that year most of them might, if they would, enlarge their homes, for with a home of one room, and the husband not coming home to meals, the wife has very little to do, and is able for a time to earn money by her own labour. This she often does, but, as a rule, the public-house gets the benefit of it, consequently the home is not enlarged. Then the children begin to come; the wants of the parents increase, but their means lessen, yet by no means must the public-house be forsaken. I have seen many men completely astonished when I have suggested to them that they ought to have more room for themselves and family, and that the money spent in drink would easily provide it. The public-house has become part of their very life, and children may come in quick succession, the infants may grow into boys and girls, and the boys and girls into young men and young women, but the public-house must not be forsaken, and the amount spent on drink must not be curtailed. The sacred duty of the English working man is to see that the publican does not suffer. His wife may suffer, his children may suffer, they may herd together like animals, but his glorious institution must be upheld.

This is the rock on which the home life of working men is wrecked; yet it is not a hidden rock, for examples abound all around them, but the love of drink casts out the love of child, and the idea that present self-denial will bring them future good and lasting joy has no weight with them. The moral worth, business capacity and intellect that is lost to the country because of this one evil cannot be measured. Born into homes of one or two rooms, born even of parents stupidly neglectful, are boys that are keen as the razor’s edge, whose talents fit them for useful lives, but whose talents getting no training at home, and finding no outlet for good, very soon get trained for evil, for an outlet in that direction is always to hand.

Recently a small boy, not twelve, applied at the North London Police Court for a summons. The magistrate asked him why he required a summons. ‘For wages, sir.’ ‘But surely you go to school?’ the magistrate said. Yes, he did go to school, but he was errand-boy at nights and all day on Saturdays, and earned two shillings a week. It was Saturday morning, and he had gone to his work, but found another boy, a whole-timer, in his place. His master had not given him notice, so he claimed a week’s pay in lieu of it. The magistrate gravely told him that he was not ‘a workman within the meaning of the Act,’ and that he would have to take out a summons at the County Court, and off to the County Court the little fellow trudged.

Now, a boy of that sort is worth looking after, and is worth a good many pots of beer; but it is dangerous to neglect such a boy; yet these boys, when about fifteen, leave our working men’s homes wholesale; ‘there is no room for them.’ Nor will there ever be room for them until working men are prepared to sacrifice the public-house on the altar of home life. Great politicians, public orators, and even wise and learned deans, may boast that they ‘never robbed a man of a pot of beer.’ I would like to rob some men of a good many pots of beer, for I contend that any man who prevents home decency by pots of beer, any father who is content that his boys should leave home while still children because ‘there is no room for them,’ while he can find money for the public-house, is a traitor and a criminal; patriotism has no place in his heart, for the love of country comes from the love of home. What do such men do for the good of their country? They simply take upon themselves duties with regard to children which they scandalously and wickedly evade. But the effects are far-reaching, and the country pays the penalty in minus good but plus evil. If parents would but understand, if they would but realize and know, that child-life in their homes brings responsibility and duty, and that the fulfilment of that responsibility and the performance of that duty—though they may cost anxious thought and much worry for a time, and though self-denial may have to be practised and the public-house dispensed with—will be more than compensated by the increased happiness of their children and the increased prosperity of the community.

One thing to me seems certain and palpable: working men cannot have home happiness and home culture and the public-house. The two are in direct antagonism. It is for them to make the choice. Will they make a wise choice? I doubt it, for has it not been said, ‘They who drink beer, think beer’?