As near as I can make out their practices was like this. They’d all back horses with the money they should have kept in a safe place against rent day, and them that lost would wait while Monday when the packman come round, and they’d take a suit of clothes or a pair of blankets on the weekly payment system. Straight away they would carry them to the pawn-shop, so their husbands having never set eyes on the stuff would never miss it out of the house. I suppose they’d think they’d done a clever thing when they had raised the money for the rent and a bit over besides to back another horse.
Sometimes the Day of Judgment would seem to have come to one or another when county court summonses would come to their house, but so long as their husbands did not see the papers, they’d put off the day of reckoning a bit longer.
My wife says they’d run round to one another’s houses and say, “I’m in a deal of trouble, will you oblige me to-day by taking a pair of blankets off the Clothing Company and pledge them for me, and I’ll pay you back when I can? And if you get into trouble some day, I’ll help you out if you’ll just oblige me this once.” My wife knew nothing about such ways afore we came to live in this street, but she were a quick learner, and got into it like a lad gets into his new sums when he gets put up a standard at school.
It’s none so very hard when it’s put plain—horses, packman, pawn-shop, and a county court; and then over again, more horses, more packmen, more pawn-shops, and more county court.
Sorry to trouble you with such a long yarn, but I put it to you as a practical question, How am I to get out of this fix? If I go to gaol I lose my work, and rent’s running on, and grocery bills and coal bills are running on, for seven bairns can’t be fed on air, and I am told going to gaol does not clear off the whole of the bill to these pedlar fellows, but only a little bit of the back payments, and you may be taken again as soon as you come out for another bit. I put it to you plain, What is a man in my circumstances to do?
Faced with a similar question, what would the reader do? Circumstances like these indicate only too clearly why it is that there is a social problem. The heart of all happiness and integrity in life resides in the home, and when anything comes between the mutual understanding and confidence that alone makes home life possible, we may be sure that evils undreamt of before will find an entrance into the home.
The insidious nature of the evil is best illustrated from the fact that almost every week the newspapers record the downfall of some individual whom the public had thought above suspicion. Similar instances occur in the humbler walks of life. The present writer knows of instances in which cottages sometimes lent for religious services were also on occasion used as betting centres. Here is an extract from the letter of a reliable correspondent:—
A bookmaker made one woman in a street his friend. She would receive the money for him, and gradually entice many to join. In my own district there the most respectable looking home was used in this way. The owner, a widow woman, was perfectly clean and tidy, no gossip, and never talking at the door. She allowed her son first, and then she herself took it up, and just because in all other ways she was respectable, the other women were snared into thinking less of the sin.
Another feature which calls for comment is the fact that girls are either encouraged by their employers, or by their fellow-servants, to indulge in betting. Deaconess Clarkson of Durham mentions the case of a girl, sent to service from a “Friendless Girls’ Home,” failing to repay her monthly instalment for her outfit. On being asked the reason, the girl maintained that her mistress had persuaded her to put it on a horse.
This other instance would be ludicrous if it were not pathetic. The first night a young girl spent in service she was asked by the butler to give half-a-crown for the sweep. She asked why she should pay the sweep! but in order to avoid giving offence gave him the money. The parlour-maid “lifted” the sweep, amounting to 37s. 6d., when the girl understood what the butler had meant.