In Darkest England, and the Way Out

by William Booth

The overcrowded homes of the poor compel the children to witness everything. Sexual morality often comes to have no meaning to them. Incest is so familiar as hardly to call for remark. The bitter poverty of the poor compels them to leave their children half fed. There are few more grotesque pictures in the history of civilisation than that of the compulsory attendance of children at school, faint with hunger because they had no breakfast, and not sure whether they would even secure a dry crust for dinner when their morning's quantum of education had been duly imparted. Children thus hungered, thus housed, and thus left to grow up as best they can without being fathered or mothered, are not, educate them as you will, exactly the most promising material for the making of the future citizens and rulers of the Empire.

What, then, is the ground for hope that if we leave things alone the new generation will be better than their elders? To me it seems that the truth is rather the other way. The lawlessness of our lads the increased license of our girls, the general shiftlessness from the home-making point of view of the product of our factories and schools are far from reassuring. Our young people have never learned to obey. The fighting gangs of half-grown lads in Lisson Grove, and the scuttlers of Manchester are ugly symptoms of a social condition that will not grow better by being left alone.

It is the home that has been destroyed, and with the home the home-like virtues. It is the dis-homed multitude, nomadic, hungry that is rearing an undisciplined population, cursed from birth with hereditary weakness of body and hereditary faults of character. It is idle to hope to mend matters by taking the children and bundling them up in barracks. A child brought up in an institution is too often only half-human, having never known a mother's love and a father's care. To men and women who are without homes children must be more or less of an incumbrance. Their advent is regarded with impatience, and often it is averted by crime. The unwelcome little stranger is badly cared for, badly fed, and allowed every chance to die. Nothing is worth doing to increase his chances of living that does not Reconstitute the Home. But between us and that ideal how vast is the gulf! It will have to be bridged, however, if anything practical is to be done.

CHAPTER 9. IS THERE NO HELP?

It may be said by those who have followed me to this point that while it is quite true that there are many who are out of work, and not less true that there are many who sleep on the Embankment and elsewhere, the law has provided a remedy, or if not a remedy, at least a method, of dealing with these sufferers which is sufficient: The Secretary of the Charity Organisation Society assured one of my Officers, who went to inquire for his opinion on the subject, "that no further machinery was necessary. All that was needed in this direction they already had in working order, and to create any further machinery would do more harm than good."

Now, what is the existing machinery by which Society, whether through the organisation of the State, or by individual endeavour, attempts to deal with the submerged residuum? I had intended at one time to have devoted considerable space to the description of the existing agencies, together with certain observations which have been forcibly impressed upon my mind as to their failure and its cause. The necessity, however, of subordinating everything to the supreme purpose of this book, which is to endeavour to show how light can be let into the heart of Darkest England, compels me to pass rapidly over this department of the subject, merely glancing as I go at the well-meaning, but more or less abortive, attempts to cope with this great and appalling evil.

The first place must naturally be given to the administration of the Poor Law. Legally the State accepts the responsibility of providing food and shelter for every man, woman, or child who is utterly destitute. This responsibility it, however, practically shirks by the imposition of conditions on the claimants of relief that are hateful and repulsive, if not impossible. As to the method of Poor Law administration in dealing with inmates of workhouses or in the distribution of outdoor relief, I say nothing. Both of these raise great questions which lie outside my immediate purpose. All that I need to do is to indicate the limitations—it may be the necessary limitations—under which the Poor Law operates. No Englishman can come upon the rates so long as he has anything whatever left to call his own. When long-continued destitution has been carried on to the bitter end, when piece by piece every article of domestic furniture has been sold or pawned, when all efforts to procure employment have failed, and when you have nothing left except the clothes in which you stand, then you can present yourself before the relieving officer and secure your lodging in the workhouse, the administration of which varies infinitely according to the disposition of the Board of Guardians under whose control it happens to be.

If, however, you have not sunk to such despair as to be willing to barter your liberty for the sake of food, clothing, and shelter in the Workhouse, but are only temporarily out of employment seeking work, then you go to the Casual Ward. There you are taken in, and provided for on the principle of making it as disagreeable as possible for yourself, in order to deter you from again accepting the hospitality of the rates,—and of course in defence of this a good deal can be said by the Political Economist. But what seems utterly indefensible is the careful precautions which are taken to render it impossible for the unemployed Casual to resume promptly after his night's rest the search for work. Under the existing regulations, if you are compelled to seek refuge on Monday night in the Casual Ward, you are bound to remain there at least till Wednesday morning.

The theory of the system is this, that individuals casually poor and out of work, being destitute and without shelter, may upon application receive shelter for the night, supper and a breakfast, and in return for this, shall perform a task of work, not necessarily in repayment for the relief received, but simply as a test of their willingness to work for their living. The work given is the same as that given to felons in gaol, oakum-picking and stone-breaking.

The work, too, is excessive in proportion to what is received. Four pounds of oakum is a great task to an expert and an old hand. To a novice it can only be accomplished with the greatest difficulty, if indeed it can be done at all. It is even in excess of the amount demanded from a criminal in gaol.