East London

by Walter Besant

As a rule, these boys live well. For breakfast they have bread and butter and tea, with a “relish,” such as an egg or a piece of bacon; at twelve they take their dinner at one of the humbler coffee-houses which abound in the streets of East London; it consists of more bread and butter and tea, with half a steak and potatoes. For tea they go to another coffee-house; they can get two thick slices of bread for a halfpenny each; butter or jam costs another halfpenny; a cup of coffee costs a halfpenny, or a whole pint may be had for a penny. In the evening their favorite supper is the dish familiarly known as “ha’porth and ha’porth”—that is, fish and potatoes at a halfpenny each. So far their life is healthy, with plenty of work and plenty of food, and, in most cases, strong drink is neither desired nor taken. The craving for drink comes later. The dangerous time of life is the age when the boy passes into manhood. Then the simple meals at the coffee-house no longer suffice. Then it becomes necessary to have beer, and beer in ever-increasing quantities. Then the boy grows out of his work; he becomes too big to carry beer for the bargees or to go round with the newspapers, or to sit at the back of the van, or to carry about cabbages in a basket.

What is he to do next?

East London Loafers.

There are, even for a grown man, many situations which demand no training and no apprenticeship. In all the warehouses, in the great shops, in offices of every kind, there are wanted men to fetch and carry, to load and unload, to pack and unpack. In the docks there are wanted troops of men to load and to unload. In the markets and on the railways there are wanted men to carry and to set out the goods. In every kind of business servants must be had to do that part of the work which requires no skill. Unfortunately the supply is greater than the demand. There are many lads who get into the service of companies, railways, or factories, and remain in steady work all their working lives in the same employment. There are, on the other hand, a great number who have to hang about on the outskirts of regular work, who are taken on in times of pressure and find it difficult to get work when times are slack; these are the men who become the casual hands; these are the men who hang about the dock-gates and loaf round street corners.

The process of degeneration by which the promising lad sinks into the casual hand is easy to follow.

The work, whatever it may be, is finished at half-past six or seven. The lads have, therefore, like the factory girl already considered, four or five solid hours every evening to get through. The other day I was looking through some statistics of work in the eighteenth century. It then began at six, sometimes at half-past five; it left off at eight in the evening, with the exception of those trades which could not be carried on by the light of tallow candles. The people went to bed before ten. The time for supper, rest, and recreation was therefore reduced to two hours. There was no Saturday afternoon holiday. All through the pre-Reformation time there had been a Saturday half-holiday, because Saturday was reckoned as the eve of a saint’s day, and every eve of an important saint’s day was a half-holiday. The Reformation swept away this grateful respite from work. Therefore, except for Sunday, the craftsman’s working-day was practically the whole day long.

We have changed these long for shorter hours; the people have now a long evening to themselves and the Saturday half-holiday, as well as Sunday.

Consider what this means to a lad of sixteen, one of the riverside lads. He has, we have seen, no books and no desire for reading; a free library offers no attractions to him; he has no study or pursuit of any kind; he does not wish to learn anything; and he has four hours, perhaps five, to get through every evening, except Saturday, when he has nine hours, and Sunday, when he has the whole day—say sixteen hours. In every week he has actually forty-five long hours in which to amuse himself as best he can. What is that boy to do? He must do something which brings with it excitement and activity; his blood is restless; he knows not what he wants; it is an age which has its ideals, and his are of the heroic kind, but too often of a perverted heroism.

A few of them, but in proportion very few indeed, belong to the boys’ clubs which are scattered about East London. They are the fortunate boys; they contract friendships with the young men—gentlemen always—who run the club; they can learn all kinds of things if they like; they work off their restlessness and get rid of the devil in the gymnasium with the boxing-gloves and with the single stick; they contract habits of order and discipline; they become infected with some of the upper-class ideals, especially as regards honor and honesty, purity and temperance; the fruits of the time spent in the club are seen in their after life; these are the lads who lead the steady lives and become the supporters of order and authority. A few again, but very few, get the chance of polytechnic classes and continuation schools, but these things are mostly above the riverside folk. Here and there a class is formed and taught by ladies in one or other of the minor arts, such as wood-carving, in which the lads quickly take great delight.