East London

by Walter Besant

For those who come under the influence of the Settlement it destroys class suspicion, it removes prejudices; the working-men discover that those whom they call, in a lump, the rich are not what their radical orators of Whitechapel Waste believe and teach; they make friends where they thought to find only enemies; they learn the things in which the rich are happier than themselves—the cleanly life, the power of acquiring knowledge, the possession of, or the access to, art of all kinds, more gentle manners, greater self-restraint, and in the cases before their eyes unselfishness and the power of working without pay, without praise, without apparent reward of any kind. Above all, there is no hidden motive; Canon Barnett’s church stands beside the Settlement of Toynbee Hall, but there is no invitation, no condition, no pressure put upon the people to step out of the Settlement into the church. There is no teaching of politics; there is no attempt to introduce shibboleths; there are no bribes, unless it is the pressure of the friendly hand and the pulse of the sympathetic heart; the evenings spent with gentlewomen and gentlemen, the patient teaching, the lecture by a man whose name is known over the whole world—unless these things be considered bribes, then the Settlement offers none.

In education, then, the Settlement has classes which learn all kinds of sciences, but not for trade purposes; it has lectures by great, or at least by distinguished, men; it offers exhibitions of pictures the same as those presented to West End people; it encourages the formation of clubs and associations of all kinds; it opens the library to everyone; it leads the way in local government; it offers recreation that shall be really recreative; it enrolls the boys in athletic clubs, and gives them something to aim at and to think about; it gathers in the girls and keeps them from the dangers of long evenings with nothing to do; it is a center for the study of the labor problems and difficulties of all kinds. In one word, the Settlements of East London, where I know most of their workings, are set up as lamps in a dark place; they are not like an ordinary lamp which at a distance becomes a mere glimmer; the lamp of the Settlement, the more widely its light penetrates, the farther the darkness recedes; the deeper is the gloom, the more brightly shines the light of this lamp so set and so illuminated and so maintained.

Should the workhouse be considered as any part of the work of the Helping Hand? It should be, but it cannot be. Whatever the state touches in the way of charity or philanthropy it corrupts and destroys, whether it is the workhouse or the prison or the casual ward. As for the London workhouse, it is simply a terrible place. It is a huge barrack; it contains over a thousand inmates; they are all alike herded and huddled together, the respectable and the disreputable; there is no distinction between misfortune and the natural consequence of a wasted life. The system is a barbarous survival of a time when the system was not so barbarous because the respectable poor were much rougher, coarser, ruder, and nearer to the disreputable poor. It must be reformed altogether. There ought not, to begin with, to be this kind of barrack life for the respectable poor; there should be municipal almshouses. Meantime the poor folk themselves hate the workhouse; they loathe the thought of it; they are wretched in the shelter of it; you may see the old men and the old women sitting in gloomy silence, brooding over their own wreck; they have nothing else to do; they are prisoners; they cannot go in and out as they please; they are under strict rule, a rule as rigid as that of any prison; they have no individuality; they all try to cheat the officers by smuggling in forbidden food; they are at the mercy of Bumble, who may be a very dreadful person, not comic in the least. The most unhappy are those who should be the objects of the greatest pity, the brokendown, able-bodied man, too often bent with rheumatism—the English agony—or some other incurable disease. Such an one enters into this place, where all hope must be abandoned; we use the phrase so often that we hardly understand what it means. No hope at forty but to lead the rest of life without work, without change, without comforts; to be deprived of tobacco, beer, meat, society, mental occupation; to live on among the other wrecks of humanity, with so much bread every day, so much suet pudding, so much cocoa, so much pea soup, so much tea. Can the workhouse be truly called part and parcel of the work of the Helping Hand?

Let us end, as we began, with the lower levels. Very far, indeed, below the working-men who attend the lectures and the drawing-room of Toynbee Hall are the submerged and the casuals, the dockers, the wanderers, and the criminals at large. What is done for them? They are, of course, looked after with the utmost zeal and attention by the police, by the officers of the vestry, and by the magistrates. But these agencies are not exactly reformatory in their character.

I have spoken of the Settlement as one of two forces now acting upon the mass of the people which seem to promise the most powerful influence upon the future. The second of these two forces I believe to be the social work of the Salvation Army. I am not speaking of their religious efforts; they do not appeal, as a rule, to the educated; on the other hand, I would not speak a word in disrespect of efforts which I know to be genuine and which I know to have been attended with signal success in the reclaiming of thousands from evil ways.

The first step in the social work of the Salvation Army is the opening of a lodging-house of the cheapest kind. So far, against great opposition, they have, I believe, succeeded in keeping it free from the ordinary law as regards common lodging-houses—viz., the visit of the policeman whenever he chooses either to see that there is no disorder or because he “wants” somebody, and so in the middle of the night tramps round the dormitories, turning his bull’s eye upon the faces of the sleepers. It is most important that the poor creatures in the place should feel that in that shelter at least they will not be hunted down. The men have to pay for their lodging—the price of a bed varies from twopence to fourpence; the beds are laid in bunks; they are covered with American cloth; they are provided each with a thick blanket; foot-baths and complete baths are ready for them; a cup of cocoa and a large piece of bread cost a trifle; they are received in a light, warm, and spacious hall; they are invited every evening to join in a short service, with singing and an address. In the morning those of them who choose lay their cares before the superintendent, who sends them on to the Labor Bureau, where in most cases, if the man is willing to work, something is found for him.

They have, next, workshops where all kinds of work are undertaken and turned out; homeless and friendless lads are received in these workshops and taught trades. Whatever may be the previous record of a case, the man received is treated as a friend; his past is regarded as already finished and done with, perhaps already atoned. He is made to understand that if he would return to the world he must work for every step; by work alone he is to get food, shelter, and clothes; beside him at every step stands the officer in whose charge he has been placed. He is constantly watched, without being allowed to entertain any suspicion that his conduct is under careful supervision.

If you visit one of these workshops you will be astonished at the show of cheerful industry. Everyone seems doing his very best. Some of this apparent zeal is genuine; some of it is inspired by passing emotion and evanescent passion or repentance; out of the whole number so many per cent. give up the work and go back to the old life. But some persevere.

I have already spoken of the English prison. The cry of the wretched prisoner goes up continually, but in vain. The long agony and torture, especially to the young, of the solitary cell, the enforced silence, the harsh punishments, the insufficient food, the general orders which will allow of no relaxation in any case, the system which turns the most humane of warders into a machine for depriving his prisoner of everything that makes a man—these things crush the unhappy victim. After a long sentence—say of two years—this poor wretch comes out broken; he has no longer any will, any resource, any courage; he is like a cur whipped and kicked into a thing that follows when it is bidden.

Let me again recall the appearance of these unhappy creatures on the morning of their deliverance. They sit spiritless, obedient, not speaking to each other or to their new friends, waiting for some fresh order. It is pitiful to look at the semblance of manhood and to think that this—this is the method adopted by the nation in its wisdom in order to punish the crime and to reform the criminal. When the sentence is over they escort him to the gates of the prison; they throw the doors open wide and say, “Go, and sin no more.” What is the wretched man to do, but to go and sin again? No one will employ him. He has lost his skill and sleight of hand. He has lost his old pride in his work; he cares for nothing now. It is a hard world for many; it is a black, hopeless, despairing world for the man who once enters or comes out of an English prison. There is a poem, written the other day, by one who endured this awful sentence—a scholar and a man of culture: