But all the streets of Laundry-Land are not given up to useful industry. A portion of the district is so notorious as a guilt garden that it has been called the London Avernus. It is packed with common lodging-houses, a large number of them for women, and it has streets of evil reputation in which almost every window is broken and stuffed with rags. The Borough Council has now in hand a splendid rehousing scheme which will vastly improve the district, but we must take it as we find it to-day.
We turn out of the sunlight, and entering a narrow doorway descend into the basement of a typical lodging-house. The house is known locally as the "Golden Gates," a name bestowed upon it in a spirit of badinage by a client with a sense of humour.
The kitchen is crowded with women, young and old. Some are sitting on the benches around the wall, one or two are making a late breakfast; an old woman is cooking something at the red coke fire.
As a rule there is little conversation in a lodging-house in the morning hours. I have been constantly struck by the note of moodiness, not to say sullenness, which hangs over the company during the hours of daylight. The men are, as a rule, more communicative than the women. Women of the class that drift to the doss-house are not inclined to exchange confidences with their neighbours.
But the kitchen of the Golden Gates as we enter it has one talkative occupant. As soon as our eyes get accustomed to the gloom, which is only relieved by a ray of light filtering through a small, dust-covered window, we notice that a tall woman in faded finery and an astrachan hat, and with some traces of refinement in features and bearing, is standing in the centre and chaffing the others. One or two smile at her jokes, but the majority are wholly indifferent, wearing that air of sullen aloofness which is peculiarly characteristic of a woman's lodging-house.
I have not intruded on the privacy of the ladies of the Golden Gates without a show of justification. To enable my companion to make a sketch of the scene, I have resorted to an expedient which permits me to make certain inquiries of a semi-official nature, and to attract the attention of the guests while my confrère is at work. If they were aware that they were being sketched it is quite likely that there would be trouble, and my comrade might find himself in as unpleasant a fix as did a photographer who once went with me to the Chinese quarter in Limehouse, for "Living London," and attempted to take the proprietor of an opium den and some of his clients. The photographer emerged unscathed, but the camera required a considerable amount of repair.
Fortunately I have an inquiry to make which puts my audience in sympathy with me, and my confrère is supposed to be making notes of the information supplied as to the last movements of a woman who had used the house for some time and had mysteriously disappeared.
During the whole time the lady in the dingy astrachan keeps up a running fire of chaff, which materially assists us.
"THE LADY IN THE DINGY ASTRACHAN KEEPS UP A RUNNING FIRE OF CHAFF."