The Alien Invasion

by W. H. Wilkins

To call the place where these transactions are carried on a "slave-market" is perhaps an abuse of terms, since, in a strictly literal sense, nobody buys and nobody sells; but that it is a traffic in human beings cannot be denied. Almost any Sunday morning during the spring, summer, and autumn months, at the corner of Goulston Street, Whitechapel, for instance, may be seen a varying number of men drawn up in a line against the wall. In front of them stands a man who engages—I will not say sells—them to the sweater, who gets his victims to sign a paper, binding them to work for so many weeks and at so much money in the sweating dens. It is a pitiful sight. Most of these men are newly-arrived foreign paupers, chiefly Polish Jews. The boat from Hamburg arrives every Saturday at the docks, and the agent who meets them conveys them to some Jewish shelter where they remain until Sunday morning, when he leads them to this place. Most of them as they stand there have the high boots and fur cap distinctive of the Russian peasant. Want and long service are plainly written on their emaciated forms, and along with these a certain patient and dogged intention of purpose. Often the sweater will give them at first only their food and lodgings, such as it is. The salary given them varies from two to three shillings per week; their food is horrible, so is their lodging. They will work fourteen, sixteen, and eighteen hours a day, and they will sleep in the den in which the work is done. They suffer hunger, cold, heat, and vermin. They are without the help of relations, acquaintances, or protection. They agree to pay back a certain sum if they break their engagement; and as this is impossible for them to do, they remain practically slaves, working for nothing, or next to nothing.

Most of them have to learn a trade at first, during which period they earn nothing, and are glad to submit to any terms the sweater may think fit to impose. The slang term for such persons is "greener," and in many respects the condition of a "greener" is worse than that of a slave. By and by when he has learnt his business, which in the cheap tailoring trade, for instance, would be the machine work, he receives a small wage, from six to seven shillings a week, barely sufficient to maintain existence. As a rule the "greeners" are very quick to learn, and as they progress they earn a little more; but their position is precarious, being liable to be discharged at a moment's notice. The work is precarious too, and the wages are irregularly paid. Sometimes there is nothing to do for weeks and weeks. Their food is of the scantiest, the refuse of fish and a little bread being the principal articles of diet. The length of hours for which they work—I speak now of the cheap tailoring trade—averages from fourteen to fifteen hours a day, or 100 hours a week. The Bishop of Bedford said:—"I have myself seen these poor creatures at work up till two in the morning, and I have found that they were again at work, the same people in the same room, at seven o'clock in the morning." Again he said:—"You can tell work is being done on the Sabbath, by the blinds being drawn. There is no holiday at all." Moreover, the surroundings amid which they work are deplorable and filthy in the extreme. That, however, will be touched upon more fully in a subsequent chapter.

Again, in the cheap boot trade, the "greener" is at first put to work as a "sew-round hand." If he does well at this, in a short time he will proceed to "finishing," and he is advanced to other branches of the work as his proficiency may warrant. The master bootmaker, who in nine cases out of ten was once a "greener" himself, is called a "boot-slosher." The "greener" will generally lodge at the house of the "slosher" who employs him; and as many as sixteen or seventeen of these "greeners" have been known to lodge in his house at the same time. The daily food, as a rule, consists of a piece of hard stale bread, dipped in salad oil. The bread is bought from a barrow in the street, and consists of the stale unsaleable loaves collected from various bakers' shops in the neighbourhood. The "greener" may supplement this possibly with a little weak coffee or cocoa; or, if he wishes to indulge in an unusual extravagance, he will invest in a piece of dried cucumber, pickled in salt and water; or perhaps two or three "greeners," by way of a treat, will go shares in a few Dutch herrings, also pickled in salt. The dried pickled cucumber is known as "Wally-Wally," and a herring is known as a "Deütcher." These articles are sold in large quantities in the East End.

It must not be supposed, however, that these men remain always in this position. When they have learned to speak the language and to know their way about, they will make better terms for themselves. By degrees they gradually get on. After being in the "slosher's" shop for six or eight months, they learn sufficient to enable them to go into the boot manufactories kept by foreigners, and to apply for work to take out in large quantities. By a process of gradual development, the "greener" becomes a "slosher" himself, and in the fulness of time he may be seen walking about the East End, accosting and offering employment to the first batch of recently-arrived immigrants he sees. More probably he will meet them at the railway-station and waterside; or if in a more extensive way of business, he will write to Hamburg to some of the agencies there, stating that he can find work for so many men. When he gets them into his clutches he treats them in precisely the same way as that in which he himself has been treated. Thus does this evil system go on and flourish.

After a time the foreign Jew begins to accumulate money; and though he still continues his frugal diet of "Wally-Wally" and "Deütcher," he launches forth a little in other ways. The long Russian coat is discarded, and with it the Hessian boots and fur cap. He bedizens himself out with a quantity of cheap flashy jewellery, and possibly goes in for mild theatrical amusements. There is a small theatre in a certain small court in Whitechapel, where well-known English plays are acted in "Yiddish." Here may be seen the smart young foreign Jews and Jewesses, arrayed in all their glory, on every night of the week except Friday, when the Hebrew Sabbath, which nearly all Hebrews outwardly respect, commences. He may also perhaps join the "Chovevi Zion"—Hebrew for "lovers of Zion"—a society which sprang into existence in the East End of London about twelve months ago; or he may possibly—very probably—join one of the many little gambling-hells so greatly affected by the foreign Jew. Worst of all, he may drift into one of the secret socialistic or foreign revolutionary societies which abound in that part of the metropolis. That such societies exist cannot be doubted. They are formed of the class of men who marched to Hyde Park the other day, with a banner inscribed "Down with the Czar." These societies have papers of their own circulated among themselves, written in "Yiddish," breathing the vilest of political sentiments—Nihilism of the most outrageous description.

Thus whole districts in the East of London are as foreign as in Warsaw, or the Ghetto—when there was a Ghetto—in Rome.

In considering the nature of Jewish immigration, allusion should also be made to a species of infamy which, I am credibly informed, has been carried on for some time past at the London Docks. Many of the immigrants are young women, Jewesses of considerable personal attractions. Men-sharks, and female harpies of all descriptions, are on the look-out for them as soon as they disembark. The young women are approached, and asked in "Yiddish" whether they are in want of work. The answer of course is in the affirmative, especially as many of these young Jewesses arrive in a friendless condition. "Then," comes the suggestion, "you had better come and stay with me until you get it," or "I can put you in the way of obtaining it." Of course this dodge does not always succeed, for many young Jewesses are by no means so guileless as they appear to be. But in two cases out of three it does. The girl, friendless and unprotected, goes off with her interlocutor, and then the old shameful story is repeated. She stays in the house until the little she has is more than due for board; her efforts to earn an honest living are in vain; and when she is destitute, she is told she must either leave the place, minus even her little baggage, or earn money at the expense of her virtue. Such a dilemma, in nine cases out of ten, presents only one means of escape; and the girl goes to swell the number of the lost and degraded of our great cities. One of the worst features of this system is, that the decoy is largely carried on by Englishmen and Englishwomen, and by no means confined to foreigners alone. Happily, a Jewish Ladies' Rescue Society has been recently formed, and its efforts have done something to mitigate the evil. An official from this society goes down to the docks for the purpose of warning female immigrants, and advising them where to find employment. But the difficulty still remains, and a very serious one it is.

When we come to inquire into the causes which bring so many of these foreign Jews to our shores, we find that in addition to the two principal reasons—the persecutions in Russia, and the American Immigration Laws, which render their admission to that country impracticable—there are other agencies at work as well. The existence of these agencies is a disputed question; but from inquiries which have been made, there is every reason to believe that many of the East End sweaters have agents abroad working on their behalf. The victims are caught by advertisements in the obscure Continental papers inserted by the "greener slave-agent," who sends batch after batch of poor Jews to this country, and they soon find their way into the sweaters' dens by means of the addresses given them. This method of advertisement is perhaps not so extensively carried on as formerly, but it still exists. Again, there is also the suspicion, which deepens almost into a certainty, of the existence of what is known in America as "steamship-solicitation." It is highly probable that some of the steamship companies principally concerned in bringing these people to England, have agents on the Continent engaged in persuading poor Jews, and poor foreigners generally, to come to this country with the delusive idea that they will find plenty of employment, and plenty of pecuniary assistance here. The notices which the Government have recently caused to be posted up at some of the European ports, may do something to nullify this; but the fact remains that there are several German steamship lines doing an enormous business in bringing these Jewish immigrants to our shores, and there are owners of British vessels also engaged in the same traffic. In America, where it had reached a very great extent, this "steamship-solicitation" has been declared illegal. How far the steamship agencies act in collusion with the sweaters' agents in England, it is not possible to say—or, indeed, if they are in collusion at all. One can only notice that all things work together in a very remarkable manner. A slight clue to the puzzle is afforded by the fact that in Leeds (according to the Report of the Chief Commissioner of Police) there exists a firm of money-lenders who advance money to Jewish applicants having friends in Russia and Poland, which is employed for the purpose of bringing them to this country. This will explain how some, at any rate, of these destitute immigrants manage to pay their passage-money to England.

There is another cause also, which is more controversial, but which must be touched upon all the same, since it is a very potent one in attracting destitute Jews to England. I allude to the well-known munificence of the wealthy English Jews, who are ever ready to help their poorer brethren. The admirably organized system of benevolence which they have gradually built up by means of charitable organizations, shelters, and similar institutions, constitutes nothing less than an open advertisement to the poor Jews all over Europe to come to England and have their wants supplied. I admit that these institutions are not intended to have that effect, and that many leading English Jews endeavour to discourage this immigration; but all the same they tend to have the result of drawing people here.