Pictures and Problems from London Police Courts

by Thomas Holmes

So she stood one Christmas Eve, and the policeman who had charge of her told a terrible story of her violence. To my surprise and dismay the magistrate said: ‘I am not inclined to send you to prison again; you have but just come out, and it does not appear to have done you any good. I shall leave the missionary to make some provision for you. You are discharged. Mr. Holmes will see after you.’

I was in a difficult position. What was I to do with her? No home in London or out of London would have her; to the workhouse she would not go. Private lodgings were out of the question, as she might half murder someone. There was only the choice of my own house or the streets, and it took me two hours to decide which. Ultimately I took her with me, trusting to my wife’s gentleness and sympathy to exercise a beneficial influence upon her, though I had the consciousness that I was exposing my wife to anxiety and danger that she ought not to undergo. But a surprise awaited me. For the first two months she proved a treasure and a help. She was a handy woman, and could do anything in the house or with her needle. She was a woman of taste, and I had to get plenty of fresh flowers with which she would decorate the table, etc.; for she loved to arrange them. She liked to wait on my sons and to study their appetites; she was always making something nice for this one and something nice for the other. It was all right for the lads, but the housekeeping expenses went up considerably. After two months I noticed that she had quiet and moody times occasionally, at others an increase in animal spirits. Sometimes I saw the old flash of temper, and I began to be afraid. By degrees she began to speak insolently to my wife, and I was vexed. She went out twice and got drunk, and I had to carry her to bed. Still, I saw how hard she was trying to do right and to acquire self-mastery. She had nowhere to go, and my wife would not hear of her being sent away. One day, however, I heard her grossly insult my wife, so I fetched her into my room, and this is what happened. ‘Annie,’ I said, ‘I heard you insult my wife.’ ‘Well, what of it?’ ‘Don’t do it again, or it will be the worse for you.’ ‘I am going to do it now. I want to see what you will do,’ she said. ‘What do you think I will do?’ ‘Send for a policeman, give me into custody, charge me, charge me. You are no better than the others. I should like you to do it.’ ‘No,’ I said, ‘I shall want no policeman for you. I can settle you myself, and this is how I shall do it.’ I took her by the throat and gave her a good shaking. When I let go of her, she looked at me and I looked at her. I don’t think she was the least bit afraid of me, but to say that she was surprised is to put it mildly. She was completely astonished, and presently she said, ‘I did not think you could have done that.’ ‘Oh, that’s not much,’ I said, ‘for I can do a great deal more if there’s any necessity.’

I think that was the best turn I ever did for her. Of course, I had no intention of hurting her, but as I looked into her eyes I saw that she had mistaken my kindness for weakness. I thought the exhibition of a little strength might do good. It was the inspiration of the moment, and it succeeded, but I don’t suppose it would often come off. But Annie behaved in a better fashion after that little affair, and she seemed to possess a growing power of self-control. Six months went by, and she left, hopeful and happy, to take a good situation in service. She was a most valuable servant, and could command the best of wages. She had applied for the place and got it, the lady taking her with full knowledge of her past life and present peculiarities, which I felt it my duty to furnish.

But Annie lives no longer in the borderland between sanity and insanity; for she writes to me from a lunatic asylum, expecting that somehow I shall accomplish her deliverance. One short year in service—a year full of hopes and struggles, of desires to do right, and compulsion to do wrong; a year marked by increasing violence and strange delusions—then Nature had its way, and the gates of a lunatic asylum closed upon her. But the magistrate never knew what a task he set me when he asked me to minister to the diseased mind of that poor woman.

I could with ease write a volume about these unfortunate women, for their name is legion. As I sit and write I see them all—young women, middle-aged women, and old women. If I were an artist, I could paint their portraits, so real are they to me. I dare not give reins to my memory; I cannot unfold my knowledge. A great deal of it will not bear repetition; but I have learned to be pitiful and patient with them, for I have seen much that is good among them, and have found that in bodies given over to gross sensuality pitiful and tender hearts sometimes exists. Even they feel the dint of pity; to the touch of Nature they are by no means strangers. Self-denial, patience, kindness, and fortitude are by no means unknown qualities among them.

Some of the grossest women I have met with, who have been sent to prison time after time, and whose conduct and bearing was unspeakable, have had little children—one or more—whom they love with a passion that ordinary people cannot understand—children for whom they would die. Knowing the law and loving their children, they do not keep those children with them, but provide a decent home for them miles from the streets they themselves ‘walk.’ One woman that I know well, who had been fined many times, and had been sent to prison on several occasions, was a long time ago in a cell waiting to be conveyed to Holloway Prison for a month. I had known her for years, but did not know that she had a daughter of twelve. This time the woman was in great distress, and sent for me. She told me her trouble. She paid eight shillings a week for her child’s board and lodging, and was a month in arrears, and the landlady had been pressing for the money, and while in prison another month’s arrears would accrue, and she was afraid that, not hearing from her, the woman would take her child to the workhouse. She wept bitterly, and begged earnestly of me to call and pay one month’s money, that the girl might remain with the woman, promising that she would pay me every penny back. She was so concerned that I promised to call and see the woman, and ascertain what had better be done about the child. I went and found a beautiful girl, exceedingly well cared for. The woman seemed decent and motherly, the house was tidy and clean. I had a long talk with the girl, who was going regularly to school, and had not the slightest idea of the life her mother was leading. I suspect the woman knew, but she professed ignorance to me, and, at any rate, she had never hinted to the girl that there was anything wrong with her mother. The woman was poor, and the money must be paid, for I saw at once that it might be fatal to the girl’s future if she had to be taken to the workhouse. So I paid the arrears, and, moreover, bought the girl a pair of boots, the only things she required, for of clothing she had plenty. I never expected to be repaid, neither did I trouble much about it.

Six weeks passed, and the mother came to see me at the court. She had brought me the money I had paid, and the price of the boots, too. I did not like taking it, for I knew she had obtained it by selling herself, and possibly by stealing; but she was insistent, so with much misgiving I took it, promising myself that when the time came for the girl to start in life it should be devoted to her use. Two years passed, during which time I saw little of the mother, as her appearances at the court became much less frequent, and finally ceased altogether. I called to see the girl, hoping to give her the start I had provided for. The difficulty was to find the mother. They did not know where she lived; they could only tell me the address to which her letters were sent. I wrote to her, and the letter reached her. She met me, and agreed to the girl going to the lady I had arranged with. I provided her outfit, for the mother had got older and coarser, and consequently poorer.

The girl, now a young woman, has remained in her situation, is doing well, and is much respected; the mother has developed into an habitual inebriate, and gets charged at other courts; but she never goes near her daughter, for her work is done, because her daughter is self-supporting. For fourteen long years she had lived her life, and kept the girl, whom she still loves. It is her love that keeps her away, for she would not have her child see her as she now is. Down to a lonely grave she will go, her only joy to know that her daughter is respected, and will never know the life her mother lived. Can love do more than this? Men will readily die to save others, but to live for long years a daily death, to be content to dwell in shame that a child may have a chance of purity, and, when that child has grown to early womanhood, to crush a mother’s longings, and forego a mother’s joy lest her child should be in some way harmed, is love almost passing knowledge, and it will be placed on the credit side of her great account.

Annie Adams was another of these perpetually convicted women, whose only hopes were centred in the life of her child; but while the mother was in prison that child had been taken away and was being cared for and trained many miles away from London. To think of that child was heaven to her, and the hope of seeing it was ecstasy, but to realize that henceforward their lives must be apart, and that probably she would never see her child again, was hell indeed, deeps below deeps, and down she went. ‘Evil, be thou my good’ seemed to be her resolve, and it was pitiful to see her: out of prison in the morning, the same night in the hands of the police, haunting the same neighbourhood, getting locked up invariably in the same place.

The years went on, and she got older; no rescue home would have her, for I tried them all. No corner of the world would have her, for I tried the various emigration societies in London, and though the necessary money would have been forthcoming to pay for her outfit, voyage, etc., no one would have her; so I clothed her decently and brought her home. Three days she stayed with us, and the thought of her child maddened her; the lust for liberty and drink came upon her, and about ten o’clock at night away she sped, on and on, for the devil lent her wings, till down in the old neighbourhood she found herself. A wild joy and a fierce fight followed. The next morning, when I went into the female prisoners’ waiting-room, she lay on the floor with cut head and bruised face, her bonnet all smashed, her clothes all torn.