And I was there sometimes to see, and it was good for me. So Mrs. Holmes and myself make frequent visits to the rest home, and every time we visit it we become more and more convinced that not only is it a "Palace Beautiful," but that it is also a joy to the slave women who have the good fortune to spend a holiday (all too short) in it.

Gloom cannot enter "Singholm" or, if it does enter, it promptly and absolutely disappears. Ill-temper cannot live there, the very flowers smile it away. The atmosphere itself acts like "laughing gas." So the house fairly rings with merry laughter from elderly staid women equally as from the younger ones, whose contact with serious and saddening life has not been so paralysing to joyous emotions.

It did us good to hear such jolly laughter from throats and organs that, but for Singholm, must have rusted and decayed.

One of our trustees was with us, it being his first visit to the home. I know that he was surprised at the size, the beauty, the comfort and refinement of the whole place. The garden filled him with delight, the skill of the architect in planning the building, together with the style, gave him increased pleasure.

The great drawing-room and the equally large dining-room rather astonished him. The little bedrooms he declared perfect. But what astonished him most of all was the unaffected happiness of the women; for this I do not think he was prepared. Well, as I have said, gloom cannot live in Singholm, and this I have found out by personal experience, for if I am quite cross and grumpy in London, I cannot resist the exhilaration that prevails at Singholm among London's underworld women.

I think I may say that our trustee was surprised at something else! But then he is a bachelor, and so of course does not understand the infinite resources of femininity.

"How nice they look," he said. "How well they dress"; and, once again, "How clean and tidy they are; how well their colours blend!"

Thank God for this! we hold no truce with dirt at Singholm; we bid dowdyism begone! avaunt! I will tell you a secret! Singholm demands respect for itself and self-respect for its inmates.

Our trustee's testimony is true; the women belonging to our association do look nice; when they are at Walton they rise to the occasion as if they were to the manner born.

When, with their cheap white or blue blouses, they sit under the palms in our drawing-room, all, even the oldest and poorest, neat—nay, smart if you will—they present a picture that can only be appreciated by those who know their lives. Some people might find fault, but to me the colour and tone of the picture is perfect.

As there were seventy of them, there was room for variety, and they gave it! Look at them! There they sit as the shades of night are falling. They have been out all day long, and have come in tired. Are they peevish? Not a bit! Are they downhearted? No!

There is my friend who makes no secret about it, and tells us that she is forty-six years of age; this is the first time she has ever seen the sea, and she laughs at the thought. The sun has browned, reddened and roughened her face, and when I say, "How delicate you look," she bursts again into merry laughter, and the whole party join her. Mrs. Holmes and myself join in, and our worthy trustee, bachelor and Quaker though he be, laughs merriest of all.

Aye! but this laughter was sweet music, but somehow it brought tears to my eyes.

Now just look at my friend over there beside one of the palms, her feet resting so naturally on the Turkey carpet! You observe she sits majestically in a commodious chair; she needs one! For she is five feet eleven inches in height, and weighs sixteen stone. I call her "The Queen," for when she stands up she is erect and queenly with a noble head and pleasing countenance.

She makes no secret about her age; "I am sixty, and I have been here four times, and, please God, I'll come forty-four more times," and she looks like it. But what if there had been no Singholm to look forward to year by year? Why, then she would have been heavy in heart as well as in body, and her erect form would have been bent, for she is a hard worker from Bethnal Green.

The idea of coming forty-four more times to Singholm, and she sixty-six, was the signal for more laughter, and again Singholm was tested; but our builder had done his work well.

"Turn on the electric light, matron!" There is a transformation scene for you! Now you see the delicate art colours in the Turkey carpets, and the subdued colours in the Medici Society's reproduced pictures.

See how they have ranged their chairs all round by the walls, and the centre of the room is unoccupied, saving here and there maidenhair ferns and growing flowers. Now look at the picture in its fulness! and we see poor old bent and feeble bodies bowed with toil, and faces furrowed by unceasing anxiety; but the sun, the east wind, the sea air and Singholm have brightened and browned them.

There is my poor old friend, long past threescore and ten, to whom Singholm for a time is verily Heaven; but—"Turn on the gramophone, please, matron." Thanks to a kind friend, we have a really good one, with a plentiful supply of records. The matron, in the wickedness of her heart, turns on an orchestral "cakewalk." The band plays, old bodies begin to move and sway, and seventy pair of feet begin unconsciously to beat the floor. Laughter again resounds; our Quaker himself enters into the spirit of it, so I invite him to lead off with the "Queen" for his partner, at which he was dismayed, although he is a veritable son of Anak.

But to my dismay the bent and feeble septuagenarian offered to lead off with myself as partner, at which I collapsed, for alas, I cannot dance. Then our trustee led the roars of laughter that testified to my discomfiture.

So we had no dancing, only a cakewalk. But we had more merriment and music, and then our little evening service. "What hymn shall we have?" Many voices called out, "Sun of my soul," so the matron went to the piano, and I listened while they sang "Watch by the sick, enrich the poor," which for me, whenever the poor, the feeble and aged sing it, has a power and a meaning that I never realise when the organ leads a well-trained choir and a respectable church congregation to blend their voices.

Then I read to them a few words from the old, but ever new, Book, and closed with a few simple, well-known prayers, and then—as old Pepys has it—"to bed."

We watch them file up the great staircase one by one, watch them disappear into their sweet little rooms and clean sheets. To me, at any rate, the picture was more comforting and suggestive than Burne Jones's "Golden Stairs." In fifteen minutes the electric light was switched off, and Singholm was in darkness and in peace. But outside the stars were shining, the flowers still blooming, the garden was full of the mystery of sweet odours; close by the sea was singing its soothing lullaby, and God was over all!

But let us get back to the underworld!

"How long have we lived together, did you ask? well, ever since we were born, and she is sixty-seven," pointing to a paralysed woman, who was sitting in front of the window. "I am two years younger," she continued, "and we have never been separated; we have lived together, worked together, and slept together, and if ever we did have a holiday, we spent it together. And now we are getting old, just think of it! I am sixty-five, isn't it terrible? They always used to call us 'the girls' when mother, father and my brothers were alive, but they have all gone—not one of them left. But we 'girls' are left, and now we are getting old—sixty-five—isn't it terrible? We ought to be ashamed of it, I suppose, but we are not, are we, dear? For we are just 'the girls' to each other, and sometimes I feel as strong and as young as a girl."

"How long have you lived in the top of this four-storey house?" I asked. "Sixteen years," came the reply. "All alone?" "No, sir, we have been together." "And your sister, how long has she been paralysed?" "Before we came to this house." "Does she ever go out?" "Of course she does; don't I take her out in the bath-chair behind you?" "Can she wash and dress herself, do her hair, and make herself as clean and tidy as she is?" "I do it for her."

"But how do you get her down these interminable stairs?" I asked.

"She does that herself, sitting down and going from step to step," she said, and then added, "but it is hard work for her, and it takes her a very long time."

"Now tell me," I said, "have you ever had a holiday?" "Yes, we have had one since my sister became paralysed, and we went to Herne Bay." "Did you take the bath-chair with you?" "Of course we did; how could she go without it?" "And you pushed her about Herne Bay, and took her on the sands in it?" I said. "Of course," she said quite naturally, as if she was surprised at my question. "Now tell me how much rent do you pay for these two rooms?" "Seven shillings and sixpence per week; I know it is too much, but I must have a good window for her, where she can sit and look out." "How do you do your washing?" "I pay the landlady a shilling a week to do it." "How long have you worked at umbrella covering?" "Ever since we left school, both of us; we have never done anything else." "How long have your parents been dead" "More than forty years," was the answer.

To every one of the replies made by the younger sister, the paralytic at the window nodded her head in confirmation as though she would say, "Quite true, quite true!"

"Forgive me asking so many questions, but I want to understand how you live; you pay seven-and-six rent, and one shilling for washing every week; that comes to eight shillings and sixpence before you buy food, coal, and pay for gas; and you must burn a lot of gas, for I am sure that you work till a very late hour," and the elder sister nodded her head. "Yes, gas is a big item, but I manage it," and then the elder one spoke. "Yes, she is a wonderful manager! a wonderful manager! she is better than I ever was." "Well, dear, you managed well, you know you did, and we saved some money then, didn't we!"

"Ah! we did, but mine is all gone, and I can't work now; but you are a good manager, better than I ever was."

I looked at the aged and brave couple, and took stock of their old but still good furniture that told its own story, and said, "You had two accounts in the Post-Office Savings Bank, and when you both worked you saved all you could?" "Yes, sir, we worked hard, and never wasted anything." Again the sixty-seven old girl broke in: "But mine is all gone, all gone, but she is a wonderful manager." "And mine is nearly all gone, too," said the younger, "but I can work for both of us," and the elder sister nodded her head as if she would say, "And she can, too!" I looked at the dozen umbrellas before me, and said, "What do you get for covering these?" "Ah! that's what's called, vulgarly speaking, a bit of jam! they are gents' best umbrellas, and I shall get three shillings for them. I got them out yesterday from the warehouse, after waiting there for two hours. I shall work till twelve to-night and finish them by midday to-morrow; they are my very best work." Three shillings for a dozen! her very best work! and she finding machine and thread, and waiting two hours at the factory!

"Come," I said, "tell me what you earned last week, and how many hours you worked?" "I earned ten shillings and sixpence; but don't ask me how many hours I worked, for I don't know; I begin when it is light, because that saves gas, and I work as long as I can, for I am strong and have good health." "But," I said, "you paid eight shillings and sixpence for rent and washing; that left you with two shillings. Does your sister have anything from the parish?" I felt sorry that I had put the question, for I got a proud "No, sir," followed by some tears from the sixty-five-year-old "girl." Presently I said, "However do you spend it?" "Didn't I tell you that I had saved some, and was drawing it? But I manage, and get a bit of meat, too!" Again from the window came the words, "She is a good manager."

"What will you do when you have drawn all your savings?" "Oh! I shall manage, and God is good," was all I could get.

A brave, heroic soul, surely, dwells in that aged girl, for in her I found no bitterness, no repining; nay, I found a sense of humour and the capability of a hearty laugh as we talked on and on, for I was in wonderland.

When I rose to leave, she offered to accompany us—for a friend was with me—downstairs to the door; I said, "No, don't come down, we will find our way; stop and earn half-a-crown, and please remember that you are sixty-five." "Hush!" she said, "the landlady will hear you; don't tell anybody, isn't it awful? and we were called the girls," and she burst into a merry laugh. During our conversation the paralysed sister had several times assured me that she "would like to have a ride in a motor-car." This I am afraid I cannot promise her, much as I would like to do so; but the exact object of my visit was to make arrangements for "the girls" to go to our home of rest for a whole fortnight.

And they went, bath-chair as well. For sixteen long years they had not seen the sea or listened to its mighty voice, but for a whole fortnight they enjoyed its never-ending wonder and inhaled its glorious breath. And the younger "girl" pushed the chair, and the older "girl" sat in it the while they prattled, and talked and managed, till almost the days of their real girlhood came back to them. Dull penury and sordid care were banished for a whole fortnight and appetite came by eating. The older "girl" said, "If I stop here much longer, I know I shall walk," and she nearly managed it too, for when helped out of her chair, she first began to stand, and then to progress a little step by step by holding on to any friendly solid till she almost became a child again. But the fortnight ended all too soon, and back to their upper room, the window and the umbrellas they came, to live that fortnight over and over again, and to count the days, weeks and months that are to elapse before once again the two old girls and an old—so old—bath-chair will revel and joy, eat and rest, prattle and laugh by the sea.

But they have had their "motor ride," too! and the girls sat side by side, and although it was winter time they enjoyed it, and they have a new theme for prattle.

I have since ascertained that the sum of ten shillings, and ten shillings only, remained in the Post-Office Savings Bank to the credit of the managing sister.

But I have also learned something else quite as pitiful—it is this: the allowance of coal during the winter months for these heroic souls was one half-hundredweight per week, fifty-six lb., which cost them eightpence-halfpenny.



CHAPTER VIII. MARRIAGE IN THE UNDERWORLD

Young folk marry and are given in marriage at a very early age in the underworld. Their own personal poverty and thousands of warning examples are not sufficient to deter them. Strange to say, their own parents encourage them, and, more strange still, upperworld people of education and experience lend a willing hand in what is at the best a deplorable business.

Under their conditions it is perhaps difficult to say what other course can or ought to be taken, for their homes are like beehives, and "swarming" time inevitably comes. That oftentimes comes when young people of either sex are midway in their "teens." The cramped little rooms or room that barely sufficed for the parents and small children are altogether out of the question when the children become adolescent. The income of the family is not sufficient to allow the parents, even if they were desirous of doing so, taking larger premises with an extra bedroom. Very few parents brace themselves to this endeavour, for it means not only effort but expense. So the young folks swarm either to lodgings, or to marriage, and the pretence of home life.

Private lodgings for girls are dangerous and expensive, while public lodgings for youths are probably a shade worse. So marriage it is, and boys of nineteen unite with girls one or two years younger.

I have no doubt that the future looks very rosy to the young couple whose united earnings may amount to as much as thirty shillings weekly, for it is an axiom of the poor that two can live cheaper than one.

It is so easy to pay a deposit on a single room, and so easy, so very easy, to purchase furniture on the hire system. Does not the youth give his mother ten shillings weekly? Why not give it to a wife? Does not the girl contribute to her mother's exchequer? Why may not she become a wife and spend her own earnings? Both are heartily sick of their present home life, any change must be for the better! So marriage it is! But they have saved nothing, they are practically penniless beyond the current week's wages. Never mind, they can get their wedding outfit on the pay weekly rule, the parson will marry them for nothing. "Here's a church, let's go in and get married." Christmas, Easter or Bank Holiday comes to their aid, and they do it! and, heigho! for life's romance.

The happy bride continues at the factory, and brings her shillings to make up the thirty. They pay three shillings and sixpence weekly for their room, one-and-six weekly for their household goods, two more shillings weekly are required for their wedding clothes, that is all! Have they not twenty-three shillings left!

They knew that they could manage it! All goes merrily as a marriage bell! Hurrah! They can afford a night or two a week at a music-hall; why did they not get married before? how stupid they had been!

But something happens, for the bride becomes a mother. Her wages cease, and thirty shillings weekly for two is a very different matter to twenty shillings for three!

They had to engage an old woman for nurse for one week only. But that cost seven shillings and sixpence. A number of other extras are incurred, all to be paid out of his earnings. They have not completed the hire purchase business; they have even added to that expense by the purchase of a bassinet at one shilling weekly for thirty weeks. The bassinet, however, serves one useful purpose, it saves the expense of a cradle.

In less than a fortnight the girl mother is again knocking at the factory door. She wishes to become an "out-worker"; the manager, knowing her to be a capable machinist, gives her work, and promises her a constant supply.

Now they are all right again! Are they? Why, she has no sewing-machine! Stranded again! not a bit of it. The hire purchase again comes to her help. Eighteenpence deposit is paid, a like weekly payment promised, signed for and attended to; and lo! a sparkling new sewing-machine is deposited in their one room. Let us take an inventory of their goods: one iron bedstead, flock mattress, two pairs of sheets, two blankets and a common counterpane, a deal chest of drawers, a deal table, two Windsor chairs, a bassinet carriage, a sewing-machine, fire-shovel, fender and poker, some few crocks, a looking-glass, a mouth-organ and a couple of towels, some knives, forks and spoons, a tea-pot, tea-kettle, saucepan and frying-pan. But I have been very liberal! They stand close together, do those household goods; they crowd each other, and if one moves, it jostles the other. The sewing-machine stands in front of the little window, for it demands the light. It took some scheming to arrange this, but husband and wife ultimately managed it. The bassinet stands close to the machine, that the girl mother may push it gently when baby is cross, and that she may reach the "soother" and replace it when it falls from baby's mouth.

Now she is settled down! off she goes! She starts on a life of toil, compared to which slavery is light and pleasant. Oh, the romance of it; work from morn till late at night. The babe practically unwashed, the house becomes grimy, and the bed and bassinet nasty. The husband's wages have not risen, though his expenses have; other children come and some go; they get behind with their rent; an "ejectment order" is enforced. The wretched refuse of the home is put on the street pavement, the door is locked against them, and the wretched couple with their children are on the pavement too! The only thing to survive the wreck is the sewing-machine. The only thing that I know among the many things supplied to the poor on the hire system that is the least bit likely to stand the wear and tear is the machine. Doubtless the poor pay highly for it; still it is comforting to know that in this one direction the poor are supplied with good articles. And the poor respect their machines, as the poor always respect things that are not shoddy.

I have drawn no fancy picture, but one that holds true with regard to thousands. Evils that I cannot enumerate and that imagination cannot exaggerate wait upon and attend these unfortunate, nay, criminal marriages; which very largely are the result of that one great all-pervading cause—the housing of the poor.

But in the underworld there are much worse kinds of married life than the one I have pictured, for those young people did start life with some income and some hopes. But what can be said about, and what new condemnation can be passed upon, the marriage of feeble-minded, feeble-bodied, homeless wanderers? United in the bonds of holy matrimony by an eager clergy, and approved in this deplorable step by an all-wise State, thousands of crazy, curious, wretched, penniless individuals, to whom even the hire system is impossible, join their hopeless lives.

Half idiots of both sexes in our workhouses look at each other, and then take their discharge after a mutual understanding. They experience no difficulty in finding clergymen ready to marry them and unite them in the bonds of poverty and the gall of wretchedness. The blessing of the Church is pronounced upon this coupling, and away they go!

Over their lives and means of living I will draw a veil, for common decency forbids me to speak, as common decency ought to have forbidden their marriage.

But down in the underworld, and very low down, too, are numberless couples whose plight is perhaps worse, for they have at any rate known the refined comfort of good homes, but remembrance only adds poignancy to suffering and despair.

Read the following story, and after condemnation upon condemnation has been passed upon the thoughtless or wicked marriages of the poor, tell me, if you will, what condemnation shall be passed upon the educated when they, through marriage, drag down into this inferno innocent, loving and pure women?

It was Boxing Day in a London police-court. Twenty-five years have passed, but that day is as fresh in my memory as though it were yesterday. The prisoners' rooms were filled, the precincts of the court were full, and a great crowd of witnesses and friends, or of the curious public, were congregated in the street.

Yesterday had been the great Christian festival, the celebration of the birth of the Prince of Peace, when the bells had rang out the old story "Peace on earth, good-will to men." To-day it looked as though Hell had been holding carnival!

Nearly one hundred prisoners had to come before the magistrate. I can see them now! as one by one they passed before him, for time has not dimmed the vivid picture of that procession. I remember their stories, and think still of their cuts and wounds. Outside the court the day was dull, and inside the light was bad and the air heavy with the fumes of stale debauch and chloride of lime. And yesterday had been Christmas Day in the metropolis of Christendom.

Hours passed, and the kindly magistrate sat on apportioning punishment, fitting the sentence as it were by instinct. At two o'clock he rose for a short recess, a hasty luncheon, and then back to his task.

At the end of the long procession came a smitten woman. Darkness and fog now enveloped the court as the woman stood in the dock. Her age was given as twenty-eight; her occupation pickle-making. First let me picture that woman and then tell her story, for she represents a number of women into whose forlorn faces I have looked and of whose hopeless hearts I have an intimate knowledge.

Some men have conquered evil habits, helped by the love of a pure woman, without which they would have vainly struggled or have readily succumbed. But while I know this, I think of the women who have fastened the tendrils of their heart's affection round unworthy men, and have married them, hoping, trusting and believing that their love and influence would be powerful enough to win the men to sobriety and virtue. Alas! how mistaken they have been! What they have endured! Of such was this woman! There she stood, the embodiment of woe. A tall, refined woman, her clothing poor and sparse, her head enveloped in surgical bandages.

In the darkness of the Christmas night she had leaped from the wall of a canal bridge into the murky gloom, her head had struck the bank, and she rolled into the thick, black water.

It was near the basin of the Surrey Canal, and a watchman on duty had pulled her out; she had been taken to a hospital and attended to. Late in the afternoon the policeman brought her to the court, where a charge of attempted suicide was brought against her. But little evidence was taken, and the magistrate ordered a week's remand. In the cells I had a few moments' conversation with her, but all I could get from her was the pitiful moan, "Why didn't they let me die? why didn't they let me die?"

In a week's time I saw her again; surgical bandages were gone, medical attention and a week's food and rest had done something for her, but still she was the personification of misery.

I offered to take charge of her, and as she quietly promised not to repeat the attempt, the magistrate kindly committed her to my care. So we went to her room: it was a poor place, and many steps we climbed before we entered it. High up as the room was, and small as were its dimensions, she, out of the nine shillings she earned at the pickle factory paid three and sixpence weekly for it. I had gathered from what she had told me that she was in poverty and distress. So on our way I brought a few provisions; leaving these and a little money with her, I left her promising to see her again after a few days. But before leaving she briefly told me her story, a sad, sad story, but a story to be read and pondered.

She was the only daughter of a City merchant, and had one brother. While she was quite a child her mother died, and at an early age she managed her father's household. She made the acquaintance of a clever and accomplished man who was an accountant. He was older than she, and of dissipated habits. Her father had introduced him to his home and daughter, little thinking of the consequences that ensued. She had no mother to guide her, she was often lonely, for her father was immersed in his business.

In a very short time she had fixed her heart on to the man, and when too late her father expostulated, and finally forbade the man the house. This only intensified her love and led to quarrels with her father. Ultimately they married, and had a good home and two servants. In a little over three years two children added to her joys and sorrows. Still her husband's faults were not amended, but his dissipation increased. Monetary difficulties followed, and to avoid disgrace her father was called upon to provide a large sum of money.

This did not add to his sympathy, but it estranged the father and child.

Then difficulties followed, and soon her husband stood in the dock charged with embezzlement. Eighteen months' imprisonment was awarded him, but the greater punishment fell upon the suffering wife. Her father refused to see her, so with her two little ones she was left to face the future. Parting with most of her furniture, jewellery, servant, she gave up her house, took two small rooms, and waited wearily for the eighteen months to pass.

They passed, and her husband came back to her. But his character was gone, the difficulty of finding employment stared him in the face.

He joined the ranks of the shabby-genteel to live somehow by bits of honest work, mixed with a great deal of dishonest work. Four years of this life, two more children for the mother, increasing drunkenness, degenerating into brutality on her husband's part. Her father's death and some little money left to her gave momentary respite. But the money soon went. Her brother had taken the greater portion and had gone into a far country. This was the condition of affairs when her husband was again arrested; this time for forgery. There was no doubt about his guilt, and a sentence of five years' penal servitude followed. Again she parted with most of her home, reducing it to one room.

With her four children round her she tried to eke out an existence. She soon became penniless, and ultimately with her children took refuge in a London workhouse. After a time the guardians sent the four children to their country school and nursing home, when she was free to leave the workhouse and get her own living.

She came out with a letter of introduction to the pickle factory, and obtained employment at nine shillings a week. The weeks and months passed, her daily task and common round being a mile walk to the factory, ten hours' work, and then the return journey. One week-end on her homeward journey she was attracted and excited by a fire; when she resumed her journey she was penniless, her week's wages had been stolen from her. Her only warm jacket and decent pair of boots then had to be pawned, for the rent must be paid. Monday found her again at the monotonous round, but with added hardships.

She missed the jacket and the boots, and deprived herself of food that she might save enough money wherewith to take them out of pawn. Christmas Eve came, and she had not recovered them. She sat in her room lonely and with a sad heart, but there was mirth and noise below her, for even among the poor Bacchus must be worshipped at Christmas time.

One of the women thought of the poor lone creature up at the top of the house, and fetched her down. They had their bottles of cheap spirits, for which they had paid into the publican's Christmas club. She drank, and forgot her misery. Next morning, when the bells of a neighbouring church were ringing out, they awoke her as she lay fully dressed on her little bed. She felt ill and dazed, and by and by the consciousness came to her of fast night's drinking. Christmas Day she spent alone, ill, miserable and ashamed. "I must have been drunk!" she kept repeating to herself, and on Christmas night she sought her death.

I wrote to kind friends, and interested some ladies in her welfare. Plenty of clothing was sent for her; a better room, not quite so near the sky, was procured for her. Her daily walk to the factory was stopped, for more profitable work was given to her. Finally I left her in the hands of kind friends that I knew would care for her.

Two years passed, and on Christmas Eve I called with a present and a note sent her by a friend. She was gone—her husband had been released on ticket-of-leave, had found her and joined her, and for a time she kept him as well as herself. He was more brutal than before, and in his fury, either drunk or sober, he frequently beat her, so that the people of the house had to send them away. Where they had moved to, I failed to find out, but they had vanished!

Fourteen months passed, and one bitterly cold day in February at the end of a long row of prisoners, waiting their turn to appear before the magistrate, stood the woman wretched and ill, with a puling bit of mortality in her arms.

She was a "day charge," having been arrested for stealing a pot of condensed milk. At length she stood before the magistrate, and the evidence was given that she was seen to take the milk and hurry away. She was arrested with the milk on her.

It was believed that she had taken milk from the same place at other times. When asked what she had to say in extenuation, she held her child up and said, "I did not take it for myself, I took it for this!" She did not call it her child. The magistrate looked, shuddered, and sentenced her to one day.

So once again I stood face to face with her, and face to face with a big man who had been waiting for her, who insolently asked me what I wanted with his wife. I turned from him to the woman, and asked if she would leave him, for if so I would provide for her.

Mournfully she shook her head; leave him, no!—to the bitter end she stood by him.

So they passed from my view, the educated brute and the despairing, battered, faithful drudge of a woman, to migrate from lodging-house to lodging-house, to suffer and to die!

If all the girls of England could see what I have seen, if they could take, as I have taken, some measure of the keen anguish and sorrow that comes from such a step, they would never try the dangerous experiment of marrying a man in the hope of reforming him. Should, perchance, young women read this story, let me tell them it is true in every particular, but not the whole truth, for there are some things that cannot be told.

Again and again I have heard poor stricken women cry: "How can you! how can you!" More than once my manhood has been roused, and I have struck a blow in their defence.

If there is one piece of advice that, in the light of my experience, I would like to burn into the very consciousness of young women, it is this: if they have fastened their heart's love about a man, and find that thorough respect does not go with that love, then, at whatever cost, let them crush that love as they would crush a serpent's egg.

And the same holds good with men: I have known men in moments of passion marry young women, trusting that a good home and an assured income would restore them to decency and womanhood—but in vain! I saw a foul-looking woman far from old sent again to prison, where she had been more than a hundred times. She had also served two years in an inebriate reformatory. Fifteen years ago, when I first met her, she was a fair-looking young woman. Needless to say, I met her in the police-court. A short time afterwards she came to tell me that she was married. She had a good home, her husband was in good circumstances, and knew of her life. A few years of home life, two little children to call her mother; then back to her sensual ways. Prisons, rescue homes, workhouses, inebriate reformatories, all have failed to reclaim her, and she lives to spread moral corruption.



CHAPTER IX. BRAINS IN THE UNDERWORLD

I hope that, in some of my chapters, I have made it clear that a large proportion of the underworld people are industrious and persevering. I want in this chapter to show that many of them have also ability and brains, gifts and graces. This is a pleasant theme, and I would revel in it, but for the sorrowful side of it.

It may seem strange that people living under their conditions should possess these qualities, but in reality there is nothing strange about it, for Nature laughs at us, and bestows her gifts upon whom she pleases, though I have no doubt that she works to law and order if we only understood.

But we do not understand, and therefore she appears whimsical and capricious. I rather expect that even when eugenists get their way and the human race is born to order, that Dame Nature, the mother of us all, will not consent to be left out of the reckoning. Be that as it may, it is certain she bestows her personal gifts among the very poor equally with the rich. She is a true socialist, and, like Santa Claus, she visits the homes of the very poor and bestows gifts upon their children.

Some of the most perfect ladies I have ever met have been uneducated women living in poverty and gloom. I do not say the most beautiful, for suffering and poverty are never beautiful. Neither can rings of care beneath the eyes, and countless furrows upon the face be considered beautiful. But, apart from this, I have found many personal graces and the perfection of behaviour among some of the poorest. All this I consider more wonderful than the possession of brains, though of brains they are by no means deficient.

Have you ever noticed how pretty the healthy children of the very poor are? I am not speaking of unhealthy and feeble children, who are all too numerous, but of the healthy; for, strange as it may appear, there are many such, even in the underworld. Where do you find such beautiful curly hair as they possess? in very few places! It is perfect in its freedom, texture, colour and curl. Dame Nature has not forgotten them! Where do you find prettier faces, more sparkling eyes and eager expressions? Nowhere! And though their faces become prematurely old, and their eyes become hard, still Dame Nature had not forgotten them at birth; she, at any rate, had done her best for them.

Search any families, bring out the hundreds of pretty children, and I will bring hundreds of children from below the line that will compare with them in beauty of body, face and hair. But they must be under four years of age! No! no! the children of the upperworld have not a monopoly of Dame Nature's gifts.

And it is so with mental gifts and graces; the poor get a good share of them, but the pity is they get so little chance of exercising them. For many splendid qualities wither from disuse or perish from lack of development. But some survive, as the following stories will prove.

It was a hot day in June, and, in company with a friend who wished to learn something about the lives of the very poor, I was visiting in the worst quarters of East London.

As we moved from house to house, the thick air within, and the dirt within and without were almost too much for us. The box-like rooms, the horrible backyards, the grime of the men, women and children, combined with the filth in the streets and gutters, made us sick and faint. We asked ourselves whether it was possible that anything decent, virtuous or intelligent could live under such conditions?

The "place" was dignified by the name of a street, although in reality it was a blind alley, for a high wall closed one end of it. It was very narrow, and while infants played in the unclean gutters, frowsy women discussed domestic or more exciting matters with women on the opposite side.

They discussed us too as we passed, and audibly commented, though not favourably, on our business. I had visited the street scores of times, and consequently I was well known. Unfortunately my address was also well known, for every little act of kindness that I ventured to do in that street had been followed by a number of letters from jealous non-recipients.

I venture to say that from every house save one I had received begging or unpleasant letters, for jealousy of each other's benefits was a marked characteristic of that unclean street. As we entered the house from which no letter had been received, we heard a woman call to her neighbour, "They are going to see the old shoemaker." She was correct in her surmise, and right glad we were to make the old man's acquaintance; not that he was very old, but then fifty-nine in a London slum may be considered old age. He sat in a Windsor arm-chair in a very small kitchen; a window at his back revealed that abomination of desolation, a Bethnal Green backyard. He sat as he had sat for years, bent and doubled up, for some kind of paralysis had overtaken him.

He had a fine head and a pointed beard, his thin and weak neck seemed hardly able to bear its heavy burden. He was not overclean, and his clothes were, to say the least, shabby. But there he sat, his wife at work to maintain him. We stood, for there was no sitting room for us. Grime, misery and poverty were in evidence.

He told us that his forefathers were Huguenots, who fled from France and settled as silk weavers in Spitalfields. He had been apprenticed to boot- and shoe-making, his particular branch of work having been boots and shoes for actresses and operatic singers. That formerly he had earned good money, but the trade declined as he had grown older, and now for some years he had been crippled and unable to work, and dependent upon his wife, who was a machinist.

There did not seem much room for imagination and poetry in his home and life, but the following conversation took place—

"It is a very hard life for you sitting month after month on that chair, unable to do anything!" "It is hard, I do not know what I should do if I could not think." "Oh, you think, do you well, thinking is hard work." "Not to me, it is my pleasure and occupation." "What do you think about?" "All sorts of things, what I have read mostly." "What have you read" "Everything that I could get hold of, novelists, poetry, history and travel." "What novelist do you like best" The answer came prompt and decisive: "Dickens," "Why?" "He loved the poor, he shows a greater belief in humanity than Thackeray." "How do you prove that?" "Well, take Thackeray's VANITY FAIR, it is clever and satirical, but there is only one good character, and he was a fool; but in Dickens you come across character after character that you can't help loving."

"Which of his books do you like best?" "A TALE OF TWO CITIES." "Why?" "Well, because the French Revolution always appeals to me, and secondly because I think the best bit of writing in all his books is the description of Sydney Carton's ride on the tumbrel to the guillotine." "Have you ever read Carlyle's FRENCH REVOLUTION?" "No" "I will lend it to you." "If you do, I will read it."

"How about poetry, what poets do you like?" "The minor poets of two hundred years ago, Herrick, Churchill, Shenstone and others." "Why do you like them?" "They are so pretty, so easy to understand, you know what they mean; they speak of beauty, and flowers and love, their language is tuneful and sweet." Thus the grimy old shoemaker spoke, but I continued: "What about the present-day poets?" Swift came the reply, "We have got none." This was a staggerer, but I suggested: "What about Kipling?" "Too slangy and Coarse!" "Austin?" "Don't ask me." "What of Wordsworth, Tennyson and Browning?" "Well, Wordsworth is too prosy, you have to read such a lot to get a little; Tennyson is a bit sickly and too sentimental, I mean with washy sentiment; Browning I cannot understand, he is too hard for me."

"Now let us talk: about dramatists; you have read Shakespeare?" "Yes, every play again and again." "Which do you like best?" "I like them all, the historical and the imaginative; I have never seen one acted, but to me King Lear is his masterpiece."

So we left him doubled up in his chair, in his grime and poverty, lighting up his poor one room with great creations, bearing his heavy burdens, never repining, thinking great thoughts and re-enacting great events, for his mind to him was a kingdom.

The next day my friend sent a dozen well-selected books, but the old shoemaker never sought or looked for any assistance.

Only a few doors away we happened on a slum tragedy. We stood in a queer little house of one room up and one down stairs. Let me picture the scene! A widow was seated at her machine sewing white buckskin children's boots. Time, five o'clock in the afternoon; she had sat there for many hours, and would continue to sit till night was far advanced.

Suddenly a girl of twelve burst in and threw herself into her mother's arms, crying, "Oh, mother, mother, I have lost the scholarship! Oh, mother, the French was too hard for me!" To our surprise the mother seemed intensely relieved, and said, "Thank God for that!"

But the girl wept! After a time we inquired, and found that the girl, having passed the seventh standard at an elementary school, had been attending a higher grade school, where she had been entered for a competitive examination at a good class secondary school. If she obtained it, the widow would have been compelled to sign an agreement for the girl to remain at school for at least three years. But the widow was practically starving, although working fourteen hours daily. Verily, the conflict of duties forms the tragedy of everyday life. The widow was saved by the advanced French; poor mother and poor girl!

By and by the girl was comforted as we held the prospective of a bright future before her, and got her to talk of her studies; she recited for us a scene from AS YOU LIKE IT, and also Portia's speech, "The quality of mercy is not strained."

Standing near was a boy of not more than ten years, who looked as if he would like to recite for us, and I asked him what standard he was in. "The sixth, sir." "And do you like English Literature?" He did not answer the question exactly, but said, "I know the 'Deserted Village,' by Oliver Goldsmith."

"Where was the 'Deserted Village'?" "Sweet Auburn was supposed to be in Ireland, but it is thought that some of the scenes are taken from English villages."

"Can you give us the 'Village Schoolmaster'?" And he did, with point and emphasis. "Now for the 'Village Parson.'" His memory did not fail or trip, and the widow sat there machining; so we turned to her for more information, and found that she was a Leicester woman, and her parents Scots; she had been a boot machinist from her youth.

Her husband was a "clicker" from Stafford; he had been dead eight years. She was left with four children. She had another daughter of fourteen who had done brilliantly at school, having obtained many distinctions, and at twelve years had passed her "Oxford Local." This girl had picked up typewriting herself, and as she was good at figures and a splendid writer, she obtained a junior clerk's place in the City at seven shillings and sixpence per week. Every day this girl walked to and from her business, and every day the poor widow managed to find her fourpence that the girl might have a lunch in London City.

I felt interested in this girl, so I wrote asking her to come to lunch with me on a certain day. She came with a book in her hand, one of George Eliot's, one of her many prizes. A fourpenny lunch may be conducive to high thinking, may even lead to an appreciation of great novels: it certainly leaves plenty of time for the improvement of the mind, though it does not do much for nourishing the body. I found her exceedingly interesting and intelligent, with some knowledge of "political economy," well up in advanced arithmetic, and quite capable of discussing the books she had read. Yet the family had been born in an apology of a house, they had graduated in the slums, but not in the gutter. Their widowed mother had worked interminable hours and starved as she worked, but no attendance officer had ever been required to compel her children to school. It would have taken force to keep them away. But what of their future? Who can say? But of one thing I am very sure, and it is this: that, given fair opportunity, the whole family will adorn any station of life that they may be called to fill.

But will they have that opportunity? Well, the friend that was with me says they will, and he has commissioned me to act for him, promising me that if I am taken first and he is left, the cultured family of the slums shall not go uncared for. And amidst the sordid life of our mean streets, there are numbers of brilliant children whose God-given talents not only run to waste, but are actually turned into evil for lack of opportunity.

Here and there one and another rise superior to their environment, and with splendid perseverance fight their way to higher and better life. And some of them rise to eminence, for genius is not rare even in Slumdom.

One of our greatest artists, lately dead, whose work all civilisation delights to honour, played in a slum gutter, and climbed a lamp-post that he might get a furtive look into a school of art.

All honour and good wishes to the rising young, but all glory to the half-starved widows who shape their characters and form their tastes. To the old shoemaker good wishes; may the small pension that a friend of mine has settled on him add to his comfort and his health, may his beloved minor poets with Dickens and Shakespeare long be dear to him, and may his poor little home long continue to be peopled with bright creations that defy the almost omnipotent power of the underworld.

If any who may read these words would like to do a kind action that will not be void of good results and sure reward, I would say lend a helping hand to some poor family where, in spite of their poverty and surroundings, the children are clean and intelligent, and have made progress at school. For they are just needing a hand, it may be to help with their education, or it may be to give them a suitable start in life. If the mother happens to be a widow, you cannot do wrong.

If one half of the money that is spent trying to help unhelpable people was spent in helping the kind of families I refer to in the manner I describe, the results would be surprising.

If there is any difficulty in finding such families, I would say apply to the head mistress or master of a big school in a poor neighbourhood, they can find them for you. If they cannot, why then I will from among my self-supporting widow friends.

But do not, I beseech you, apply to the clergyman of the parish, for he will naturally select some poor family to whom he has charitably acted the part of relieving officer. Remember it is brains and grit that you are in search of, and not poor people only.

If in every neighbourhood a few people would band themselves together for this purpose and spend money for this one charitable purpose, it would of itself, and in reasonable time, effect mighty results. Believe me, there is plenty of brain power and grit in the underworld that never gets a chance of developing in a useful direction. Boys and girls possessing such talents are doomed, unless a miracle happens, for they have to start in life anyhow and anywhere.

Nothing is of more importance than a correct start in life for any boy or girl; but a false start, a bad beginning for the children of the very poor who happen to possess brain power is fatal. Their talents get no chance, for they are never used, consequently they atrophy, or, worse still, are used in a wrong direction and possibly for evil. Good is changed into evil, bright and useful life is frustrated, and the State loses the useful power and influence that should result from brains and grit.

How can my widow friends, who are unceasingly at work, have either the time, opportunity or knowledge to find proper openings for their children? The few shillings that a boy or girl can earn at anything, or anyhow that is honest, are a great temptation. The commencement dominates the future! Prospective advantage must needs give place to present requirements.

So we all lose! The upperworld loses the children's gifts, character and service. The underworld retains their poor service for life.

"It is better," said Milton, "to kill a man than a book." Which may be true, but probably the truth depends upon the quality of the man and the book. But what about killing mind, soul, heart, aspirations and every quality that goes to make up a man? "Their angels do always behold the face of my Father"; yes, but we compel them to withdraw that gaze, and look contentedly into the face of evil.

I am now pleading for the gifted boys and girls of the underworld, not the weaklings, for of them I speak elsewhere. But I will say, that while the weaklings are the more hopeless, it is the talented that are the most dangerous. Let us see to it that their powers have some chance of developing in a right direction. When by some extraordinary concurrence of circumstances a Council School boy passes on to a university and takes a good degree, it is chronicled all over the world; the school, the teacher, the boy and his parents are all held up for show and admiration. I declare it makes me ill! Why? Because I know that in the underworld thousands of men are grubbing, burrowing and grovelling who, as boys, possessed phenomenal abilities, but whose parents were poor, so poor that their gifted children had no chance of developing the talent that was in them. Let us give them a chance! Sometimes here and there one and another bursts his bonds, and, rejoicing in his freedom, does brilliant things. But in spite of Samuel Smiles and his self-help they are but few, though, if the centuries are searched, the catalogue will be impressive enough.

Of course there must be self-help. But there must be opportunity also. There is a great deal of talk about the children of the poor being "over-educated," and the delinquencies of the youthful poor are attributed to this bogy. It is because they are under-educated, not over-educated, that the children of the very poor so often go wrong.

But the attempt to cast them all in the same mould is disastrous; there is an over-education going on in this direction. Not all the children of the poor can be great scholars, but some of them can! Let us give them a chance. Not all of them can be scientists and engineers, etc., but some of them have talents for such things! Give them a chance! A good many of them have unmistakably artistic gifts! Why not give them a chance too! And the mechanically inclined should have a chance! Why can we not differentiate according to their tastes and gifts?

For even then we shall have enough left to be our hewers of wood and carriers of water; an abundance will remain to do all the work that requires neither brains nor gifts.

But let us stop at once and for ever trying to cram thick heads and poor brains with stuff that cannot possibly be appreciated or understood. Let us teach their mechanical fingers to do something useful, and give them, even the degenerates, some chance!

And we must stop our blind alley occupation for growing lads, for at the end of the alley stands an open door to the netherworld, and through it youthful life passes with little prospect of return.



CHAPTER X. PLAY IN THE UNDERWORLD

It may seem a strange thing, but children do play in the underworld. They have their own games and their times and seasons too!

Yet no one can watch them as they play without experiencing feelings more or less pathetic. There is something incongruous about it that may cause a smile, but there is also something that will probably cause a tear.

For their playgrounds are the gutters or the pavements. Happy are the children when they can procure a spacious pavement, for in the underworld wide pavements are scarce; still narrow pavements and gutters are always to hand.

It is summer time, the holidays have come! No longer the hum, babble and shouts of children are heard in and around those huge buildings, the County Council schools.

The sun pours its rays into the unclean streets, the thermometer registers eighty in the shade. Down from the top storey and other storeys of the blocks the children come, happy in the consciousness that for one month at least they will be free from school, without dodging the school attendance officer.

"Hop-scotch" season has commenced, and as if by magic the pavements of the narrow streets are covered with chalked lines, geometrical figures and numerals, and the mysterious word "tod" confronts you, stares at you, and puzzles you.

Who can understand the intricacies of "hop-scotch" or the fascination of "tod"? None but the girls of the underworld. Simple pleasures please them—a level pavement, a piece of chalk, a "pitcher," the sun overhead, dirt around, a few companions and non-troublesome babies, are their chief requirements; for few of these girls come out to play without the eternal baby.

Notice first, if you will, how deftly these foster-mothers handle the babies; their very method tells of long-continued practice. What slaves these girls are! But they have brought the baby's feeding-bottle, and also that other fearsome indispensable of underworld infant life, "the comforter."

They are going to make a day of it, a mad and merry day, for they have with them some pieces of bread and margarine to sustain them in the toil of nursing and the exhaustion of "hop-scotch."

The "pitcher" is produced, and we notice how punctiliously each girl takes her proper turn and starts from the correct place; we notice also the dilapidated condition of their boots, that act as golf clubs and propel the "pitcher." We wonder how with such boots, curled and twisted to every conceivable shape, they can strike the "pitcher" at all. There is some skill in "hop-scotch" played as these girls play it, and with their "boots" too!

A one-legged game is "hop-scotch," for the left foot must be held clear of the pavement, and the "pitcher" must be propelled with the right foot as the girl "hops."

If she hops too high and misses it, she is "out"; if she strikes too hard, and it travels beyond one of the boundaries, she is "out" too; if she does not propel it far enough, again "out."

Why, of course there is skill and fascination in it, for it combines the virtues of golf and baseball, and "tod" is quite as good as a football goal. And there is good fellowship and self-denial going on, too; not quite every girl, thank Heaven, is hampered or blessed with a baby, and we notice how cheerfully they take their turn in nursing while the foster-mother arrives at "tod."

The substitute, too, understands the use of the "comforter," for should it roll in the dirty gutter she promptly returns it to its proper place, the baby's mouth. Untidy, slatternly girls, not over-clean, not over-dressed, and certainly not over-fed, we leave them to their play and their babies.

Here are a lot of half-naked boys, some standing, some sitting on the hot pavement; they are playing "cherry hog"; why "hog" I don't know! Their requisites are a pocketful of cherry stones and a small screw, not an expensive outfit, for they save the "hogs" when they are permitted to eat cherries, as sometimes, by the indulgence of a kindly fruiterer, they are, for he kindly throws all his rotten or unsaleable fruit into the gutter.

If these are not to hand, there are plenty of "hogs" to be picked up. As to the little screw, well, it is easy to get one or steal one.

The advantage of a screw is that it possesses a flat end, on which it will stand erect. In this position it is delicately placed so that when struck by a cherry "hog" it falls. Each boy in turn throws a certain number of "hogs" at the screw, the successful thrower gathers in the spoil and goes home with his pocket bursting with cherry "hogs."

It's an exciting game, but it is gambling nevertheless; why do not the police interfere?

Here are some boys playing "buttons"—gambling again! This game is good practice, too, and a capital introduction to that famous game of youthful capitalists, "pitch and toss," for it is played in precisely the same way, only that buttons take the place of half-pennies.

The road, gutter or pavement will do for "buttons"; a small mark or "jack" is agreed upon, a line is drawn at a certain distance; alternately the lads pitch their buttons towards the "jack," three buttons each. When all have "pitched," the boy whose button is nearest the "jack" has first toss, that is, he collects all the pitched buttons in his hand and tosses them; as the buttons lie again on the ground the lads eagerly scan them, for the buttons that lie with their convex side upwards are the spoil of the first "tosser." The remaining buttons are collected by the second, who tosses, and then collects his spoil, and so on till the buttons are all lost and won. The boy whose buttons are farthest from "jack" of course gets the last and least opportunity. When playing for halfpence, "heads or tails" is the deciding factor.

Why, you say, of course it is a game of skill, just as much as bowls or quoits; but there are also elements of luck about "pitch and toss" which gives it an increased attraction.

Sunday in the underworld is the great day for "pitch and toss," for many boys have halfpence on that day. They have been at work during the week, and, having commenced work, their Sunday-school days are at an end. And having a few halfpence they can indulge their long-continued and fervent hope of discarding "buttons" and playing the man by using halfpence.

But how they enjoy it! how intent they are upon it. Sunday morning will turn to midday, and midday to evening before they are tired of it! Meal times, or the substitute for meal times, pass, and they remain at it! always supposing their halfpence last, and the police do not interfere, the latter being the most likely.

It takes an interminably long time to dispossess a lad of six halfpence at this game; fortune is not so fickle as may be supposed. The unskilled "pitcher" may have luck in "tossing," while the successful "pitcher" may be an unlucky "tosser." If at the end of a long day they come off pretty equal, they have had an ideal day.

But they have had their ups and downs, their alternations of joy and despair. Sometimes a boy may win a penny; if so, it is evident that another boy has lost one, and this is sad, though I expect they lose more coppers to the police than they do to their companions, for the police harry them and hunt them. Special constables are put on to detect them, and they know the favourite resorts of the incipient gamblers. They hunt in couples, too, and they enter the little unclean street at each end.

Now for the supreme excitement; they are observed by the watchful eye of a non-player, who is copperless. There is a rush for the halfpence, some of which the non-player secures. There's a scamper, but there is no escape; the police bag them, and innocent boys who join in the scamper are bagged too. The police search the ground for halfpence, find a few which they carefully pack in paper, that they may retain some signs of dirt upon them, for this will be invaluable legal evidence on the morrow. There is a procession of police, prisoners and gleeful lads who are not in custody to the nearest police-station.

On Monday they stand in the dock, when the police with the halfpence and the dirt still upon them give evidence against them.

One worthy magistrate will ask them why they were not at home or school. Another will sternly admonish them upon the evils of street gambling. A third will tell them that it would have paid them better in health and pocket to have taken a country walk. But all agree on one point, "that this street gambling must be put down," and they "put it down," or attempt to do so, by fining the young ragamuffins five shillings each.

The excitement of the cells then awaits them, to be followed by a free ride in "Black Maria," unless "muvver" can pawn something and raise the money, But many mothers cannot do this, others do not trouble; as to "farver," well, he does not come in at all, unless it is to give a "licking" to the boy when he comes out of prison for losing his job and his wages.

Truly, the play of the underworld children is exciting enough: there is danger attaching to it; perhaps that gives a piquancy to it.

The fascination of "pitch and toss" is felt not only all over England, where it holds undisputed sway, for it has no real rival, but in America too! Whilst in America last summer I explored the mean streets of New York, and not far from the Bowery I found lots of lads at the game. It was Sunday morning, too, and having some "nickels," I played several games with them. I was but a poor pitcher, the coins were too light for me—perhaps I could do better with solid English pennies—but what I lost in pitching I gained in tossing, so I was not ruined, neither did the Bowery lads sustain any loss.

But I found the procedure exactly the same as in England, and I felt the fascination of it; and some day when I can afford it, I will have a lot of metal counters made, and I will organise lads into a club; I will give them "caps," and they shall play where the police won't interfere.

I will give them trophies to contend for, and Bethnal Green shall contend with Holloway; a halfpenny "gate" would bring its thousands, and private gain would give place to club and district "esprit de corps," for the lads want the game, not the money; the excitement, not the halfpence. There is nothing intrinsically wrong about "pitch and toss," only the fact that ragamuffins play it.

There is a great deal of nonsense talked about the game by superior people who pose as authorities upon the delinquencies of ragamuffin youth, and who declaim upon the demoralisation attending this popular game of poor lads.

I heard at a meeting of a rich Christian Church, held in a noble hall in the heart of London's City, one gentleman declare that a smart ragamuffin youth of his acquaintance possessed a penny with a "head" on each side for the purpose of enabling him to cheat at this game.

He did not know what he was talking about, for such pennies would be as useless for this game as the stones in the streets, for "heads and tails" are the essence of the game. The boys of the underworld must play, and ought to play; if those above them do not approve of their games, well, it is "up to them," as the Americans have it, to find them better games than pitch and toss, and better playing grounds than unclean streets.

Of public parks we have enough; they are very well for sedate and elderly people. They are useful to foster-mothers, slave girls hugging babies about, and a boon for nurses with perambulators. But what of Tom, Dick and Harry, who have just commenced work; what of them? "Boy Scouting," even with royal patronage, is not for them, for they have no money to buy uniforms, nor time to scour Epping Forest and Hampstead Heath for a non-existent enemy.

Church Lads' Brigade with bishops for patrons, did I hear some one say? Well, blowing a bugle, no matter how discordantly, is certainly an attraction for a boy; and wearing a military cap set jauntily on one side of the head is attractive, too, while the dragging of a make-believe cannon through the streets may perhaps please others. But Tom, Dick and Harry from below care for none of these things, for they are "make-believes," and Tom, Dick and Harry want something real, even if it is vulgar, something with a strong competitive element in it, even if it is a little bit rough or wicked.

Besides Tom, Dick and Harry are not over-clean in person, nor nice in speech, so they are not wanted. Boy Scouts and Boys' Brigades are preached at, but Tom, Dick and Harry do not want to be preached at by a parson, or coddled by a curate.

They want something real, even though it be punching each other's head, for that at any rate is real. Give us play, play, real play! is the cry that is everlastingly rising from the underworld youth. But the overworld gives them parks and gardens, which are closed at a respectable hour. But the lads do not go to bed at respectable hours, for their mothers are still at work and their fathers have not arrived home. So they play in the streets; then we call them "hooligans," and of course they must be "put down."

There is a good deal of "putting down" for the underworld, but it is all of the wrong sort. For there is no putting down of public playgrounds for lads of fifteen and upwards open in the evening, lighted by electricity, and under proper control. Not one in the whole underworld. So they play in the streets, or rather indulge in what is called "horse-play."

But there are youths' clubs! Yes, a few mostly in pokey places, yet they are useful. But Tom, Dick and Harry want space, room and air, for they get precious little of these valuable commodities at their work, and still less in their homes. Watch them if you will, as I have watched them scores of times in the streets, how foolish, yet how pitiable their conduct is; you will see that they walk for about two hundred yards and then walk back again, and then repeat the same walk, till the hours have passed; they seem to be as circumscribed as caged animals. They walk within bounds up and down the "monkey's parade."

How inane and silly their conversation is! Sometimes a whim comes upon them, and one runs for a few yards; the whim takes possession of others, and they do exactly the same. One seizes another round the body and wrestles with him. Immediately the others begin to wrestle too; their actions are stereotyped, silly and objectionable, even when they do not quarrel.

They bump against the people, women included, especially young women. They push respectable people into the gutters, and respectable people complain to the police. An extra force is told off to keep order, and to put Tom, Dick and Harry down.

Sunday night is the worst night of all! for now these youths are out in their thousands; certain streets are given up to them, and become impassable for others. Respectable folk are shocked, and church-going folk are scandalised! Surely the streets are the property of respectable people! and yet they cannot pass through them without annoyance.

At length the street is cleared and patrolled, for respectability must be protected, not that there has been either violence or robbery. Oh dear, no! There has only been foolish horse-play by the Toms, Dicks and Harrys who, having nowhere else to go, and nothing else to do, having, moreover, been joined by their female counterparts, have been enjoying themselves in their own way, for they have been "at play."

It is astonishing how fond of water the unwashed children of the underworld are! It has an attraction for them, often a fatal attraction, even though it be thick with dirt and very malodorous. During the summer time the boys' bathing lakes in Victoria Park are crowded and alive with youngsters, who splash and flounder and choke, splutter and laugh in them. They present a sight worth seeing, and teach a lesson worth remembering.

The canals of Hoxton, Haggerston and Islington, too, dirty and dangerous as they are, prove seductive to the boys who live close to them. Now the police have an anxious time. Again they must look after Tom, Dick and Harry, for demure respectability must not be outraged by a sight of their naked bodies.

So the police keep a sharp outlook for them. Some one kindly informs them that a dozen boys are bathing in the canal near a certain bridge, and quickly enough they find them in the very act. There the little savages are! Some can swim, and some cannot; those that cannot are standing in the slime near the side, stirring up its nastiness. They see the policeman advancing, and those that can swim get ashore and run for their little bits of clothing, tied up in a bundle ready for emergencies. Into the water again they go for the other side! But, alas! another policeman is waiting on the other side at the place where they expected to land, so they must needs swim till another landing place offers security. But even here they find that escape is hopeless, for yet another policeman awaits them.

Those who cannot swim seize their bundles, and, without waiting to dress, run naked and unashamed along the canal, side, to the merriment of the bargees, and the joy of the women and girls who happen to have no son or brother amongst them, for the underworld is not so easily shocked as the law and its administrators imagine.

Ultimately they, too, find a policeman waiting for them, and a "good bag" results. But the magistrate is very lenient; with a twinkle in his eye he reproves them, and fines them one shilling each, which with great difficulty their "muvvers" pay.

But it has been a good day for the police, for four of them have helped to convey six shillings from the wretchedly poor to the coffers of the police-court receiver. But when the school holidays come round, that is the time for the dirty canal to tell its tale, and to give up its dead, too!

Read this from the Daily Press, July 16th, 1911—

"A remarkable record in life-saving was disclosed at a Bethnal Green inquest to-day on a child of six, named Browning, who was drowned in the Regent's Canal on Bank Holiday.

"Henry H. Terry, an out-of-work carman, said he was called from his home near by, and raced down to the canal. There was a youth on the bank holding a stick over the water, apparently waiting for the child to come up to the surface.

"The coroner: 'How old was the youth?' 'Well, he stood five feet six inches, and might have gone in without getting out of his depth. I heard a woman cry, "Why don't you go in!" I dived in five or six times, but did not bring up the body.' The witness added that he and his brother had saved many lives at this spot, the latter having effected as many as twenty-five rescues in a year. Alfred Terry, a silk weaver, described the point at which the child was drowned as a veritable death-trap, and mentioned that he had been instrumental during the past twelve years in saving considerably over one hundred lives at that spot.

"'One hot July afternoon in 1900,' he added,'my mother and I had five of them in the kitchen at one time with a roaring fire to bring them round. That was during the school holidays; they dropped in like flies.'

"Accidental death was the verdict."

But when the little ones play in the gutter, danger lurks very near, as witness the extract of the same date—

"At an inquest at the Poplar coroner's court to-day, on a three-years'-old girl named Bertiola, it was stated that while playing with other children she was struck on the head with a tin engine. Three weeks later she was playing with the same children, and one of them hit her on the head with the wooden horse.

"The coroner: 'Two similar blows in a few days, that is very strange.'

"Dr. Packer said that death was due to cerebral meningitis, the result of a blow on the head.

"The coroner: 'I suppose you can't tell which blow caused the trouble' 'No, sir, I am afraid not.'

"The jury returned a verdict of accidental death."

But sometimes the boys and girls of the underworld collaborate in their play, for just now (July) "Remember the grotto! please to remember the grotto!" is a popular cry. Who has not seen the London grottos he who knows them not, knows nothing of the London poor.

I was watching some girls play "hop-scotch" when a boy and girl with oyster shells in their hands came up to me preferring the usual request, "Please to remember the grotto!" Holding out their shells as they spoke.

"Where is your grotto?" I said. "There, sir, over there; come and see it." Aye! there is was, sure enough, and a pretty little thing it was in its way, built up to the wall in a quiet corner, glistening with its oyster shells, its bits of coloured china and surmounted with a little flag.

"But where are the candles?" "Oh, sir, we haven't got any yet; we shall get candles when we get some money, and light them to-night; we have only just finished it." "Where did you get your shells?" "From the fish-shops." "Where did you get the pretty bits of china from?" "We saved them from last year." "Does grotto time come the same time every year, then" "Oh yes, sir." "How is that?" "'Cos it's the time for it." "Why do you build grottos" "To get money." "Yes, but why do people give you money; what do grottos commemorate, don't you know?" "No, sir."

I looked at a poor half-paralysed boy with sharp face and said, "Well, my boy, you ought to know; do you go to Sunday School?" "Yes, sir, both of us; St. James the Less." "Well, I shall not tell you the whole story to-day, but here is sixpence for you to buy candles with; and next Sunday ask your teacher to tell you why boys and girls build grottos; I shall be here this day week, and if you can tell me I will give you a shilling."

There were at least six grottos in that street when I got there on the appointed day. A large crowd of children with oyster shells were waiting; evidently the given sixpence and the promised shilling had created some excitement in that corner of Bethnal Green.

They were soon all round me, and a general chorus arose with hands outstretched, "Please to remember the grotto! please to remember the grotto!" I called them to silence, and said, "Can any one tell me why you build grottos?" There was a general chorus, "To get money, sir." That was all they knew, and it seemed to them a sufficient reason.

Turning to the little cripple, I said, "Did you ask your teacher?" "Yes, sir, but she said it was only children's play; but I bought some candles, and they are lighted now."

I said, "Now, children, listen to me, for I am going to tell you about the beginning of grottos.

"A good many hundred years ago, when Jesus was on earth, He had two disciples named James; in after years one was called 'James the Greater' and the other 'James the Less.' After the death of Jesus, James the Greater was put to death, and the disciples were scattered, and wandered into many far countries. James the Less wandered into Spain, telling the people about Jesus. He lived a good and holy life, helping the poor and the afflicted.

"When he died, the people who loved him and reverenced him made a great funeral, and built him a costly tomb, but instead of putting up a monument to him, they built a large and beautiful grotto over the place where his body lay. They lined it with beautiful and costly shells and other rich things, and lit it with many candles.

"Thousands of people came to see the grotto, and gave money to buy candles that it might always be lighted.

"Every year, on the anniversary of St. James's death, the people came by thousands to the grotto. One year it was said that a crippled man had been made quite well while praying at the grotto. This event was told everywhere, and from that day forth on St. James's Day people came from many countries, many of them walking hundreds of miles to the grotto.

"Some of these people were ill and diseased, and others were sick and blind, and some were cripples.

"It is said that a good many of them were cured of their afflictions.

"Now all these poor people that walked slowly and painfully to St. James's tomb carried big oyster shells, in which they made holes for cords to pass through, and they placed the cords round their necks.

"When they came near to people they would hold out their shells and say, 'Please to remember the grotto!' And people gave them money to help them on their way and to buy candles for the grotto, hoping that the poor people would get there safely and come back cured.

"So it came to pass that whenever people saw a man with an oyster shell, they knew he was going or returning from St. James's tomb in Spain, and they helped him. The custom of building grottos on St. James's Day spread to many countries besides Spain. In Russia they build very fine grottos. At length the custom came to England, and you boys and girls do what other boys and girls have done for many years in other countries, and in reality you celebrate the death of a great and good man."

The children were very silent for a while; the cripple boy looked at me with tears in his eyes, and I knew what his tears expressed. I gave him a shilling, but he did not speak; to all the other children who had built grottos I gave threepence each, and there was joy in that corner of Bethnal Green.

There is always something pathetic about play in the underworld. We feel that there is something wanting in it, perhaps that something would come into it, if there were more opportunities of real and competitive play. Keeping shops, or teaching schools may do for girls to play at, but a lad, if he is any good, wants something more robust.

I often find cripple boys playing "tip-cat," another game upon which the law has its eye, or hurrying along on crutches after something that serves as a football, and getting there in time, too, for a puny kick. But that kick, little as it is, thrills the poor chap, and he feels that he has been playing. I am sure that football is going to play a great part in the physical salvation of Tom, Dick and Harry, but they must have other places than the streets in which to learn and practise the game.

We have heard a great deal about the playing-fields of public schools; we are told that we owe our national safety to them; perhaps it is correct, but I really do not know. But this I do know, that the non-provision of playing-fields, or grounds for the male youthful poor, is a national danger and a menace to activity, endurance, health and pluck.

Nothing saves them now but the freehold of the streets. Rob them of this without giving them something better, and we shall speedily have a race of flat-footed, flat-chested, round-shouldered poor, with no brains for mental work, and no strength for physical work. A race exactly qualified for the conditions to which we so freely submit it in prison. And above those conditions that race will have no aspirations. So give them play, glorious play, manly strife; let their hearts beat, and their chests expand that they may breathe from their bottom lungs, that their limbs may be supple and strong, for it will pay the nation to give Tom, Dick and Harry healthy play.

And they long for it, do Tom, Dick and Harry! Did you ever see hundreds of them on a Sunday morning coming up from their lairs in Hoxton, Shoreditch, Spitalfields and Bethnal Green, to find a field or open space in the suburbs where they might kick a football? I have seen it scores of times. A miserable but hopeful sight it is; hopeful because it bears testimony to the ingrained desire that English lads have for active healthy play. Miserable because of their appearance, and because of the fact that no matter what piece of open ground or fields they may select, they are trespassers, and may be ejected, or remain on sufferance only.

Happy are they if they can find a piece of land marked for sale, where the jerry-builder has not yet commenced a suburban slum. Like a swarm of locusts they are down on it, and quickly every blade of grass disappears, "kicked off" as if by magic.

Old walking-sticks, pieces of lath or old coats and waistcoats serve as goal-posts. Touch-lines they have none, one playing-ground runs across the other, and a dozen teams are soon hard at it. They have no caps to distinguish them, no jerseys or knickers of bright hues. There are no "flannelled fools" among them, but quickly there are plenty of "muddied oafs." Trousers much too long are rolled up, coats and vests are dispensed with, braces are loosed and serve as belts. There is running to and fro, mud, and poor old footballs are kicked hither and thither. They knock, kick and shoulder each other, their bare arms and faces are coated with mud, they fall over the ball and over each other. If they cannot kick their own ball, they kick one that belongs to another team. There is much shouting, much laughter and some bad language! and so they go at it till presently there is a great cheer, for Hoxton has got a second goal, and Haggerston is defeated. And they keep at it for two long hours, if they are not interfered with, then back to their lairs and food.

All this time good people have been in the churches close by, and the shouting of the Hoxtonians has disturbed them, and the gentle whisper of the Haggerstonians has annoyed them. Some of them are scandalised, and say the police ought to stop such nuisances; perhaps they are right, for there is much to be said against it. But there is something to be said on the other side, too; for the natural instinct of English boys must have an outlet or perish. If it perish they perish too, and then old England would miss them.

So let them play, but give them playgrounds! For playgrounds will pay better than nice, respectable parks. The outlay will be returned in due time in a big interest promptly paid from the increased vitality, energy, industry and honesty of our Toms, Dicks and Harrys. So let them play!

With much pleasure I quote from the Daily Press, November 24th, the following—

"LEARNING TO PLAY

"ORGANISED GAMES IN HYDE PARK IN SCHOOL HOURS

"It is good news that arrangements are being made by the Office of Works for the use of a part of Hyde Park for organised games under the direction of the London County Council. Hitherto the only royal parks in which space has been allotted for this purpose are Regent's Park and Greenwich Park. But the King, as is well known, takes a keen interest in all that concerns the welfare of the children, and has gladly sanctioned the innovation.

"During the year an increasing number of the elementary schools in London have taken advantage of the article in the code of regulations which provides that, under certain conditions, organised games may, if conducted under competent supervision and instruction, be played during school hours. Up to the present the London County Council has authorised the introduction of organised games by 580 departments, 295 boys', 225 girls', and 60 mixed.

"The games chiefly played by boys are football, cricket and rounders, according to the season. Girls enjoy a greater variety, and in addition to cricket and rounders, are initiated into the mysteries of hockey, basket ball, target ball, and other ball games.

"The advantages of the children being taught to get the best exercise out of the games, and to become skilful in them, are obvious.

"Arrangements have been made with the various local athletic associations and consultative committees whereby in each metropolitan borough there are hon. district representatives (masters and mistresses) in connection with organised games. Pitches are reserved in over thirty of the L.C.C. parks and open spaces for the use of schools. The apparatus required is generally stored at the playing-fields for the common use of all schools attending, but small articles such as balls, bats, sticks are supplied to each school.

"The Council has decided that, so far as practicable, the apparatus for organised games shall be made at the Council's educational institutes, and, as a result of this decision, much of it is fashioned at the handicraft centres."

This is all for good. But I am concerned for adolescent youth that has left school—the lads whose home conditions absolutely prevent the evening hours being spent indoors. Is there to be no provision for them?



CHAPTER XI. ON THE VERGE OF THE UNDERWORLD

Charles Dickens has somewhere said, "The ties that bind the rich to their homes may be made on earth, but the ties that bind the poor to their homes are made of truer metal and bear the stamp of Heaven." And he adds that the wealthy may love their home because of the gold, silver and costly things therein, or because of the family history. But that when the poor love their homes, it is because their household gods are gods of flesh and blood. Dickens's testimony is surely true, for struggle, cares, sufferings and anxieties make their poor homes, even though they be consecrated with pure affection, "serious and solemn places."

To me it has always been evident that the heaviest part of the burden inseparable from a poor man's home falls upon the wife.

Blessed is that home where the wife is equal to her duties, and doubly blessed is the home where the husband, being a true helpmate, is anxious to carry as much of the burden as possible. For then the home, even though it be small and its floors brick, becomes in all truth "a sweetly solemn place." It becomes a good training ground for men and women that are to be. But I am afraid the working men do not sufficiently realise what heavy, onerous and persistent duties fall upon the wife. With nerves of brass they do not appreciate the fact that wives may be, and are, very differently constituted to themselves. Many wives are lonely; but the husbands do not always understand the gloomy imaginations that pervade the lonely hours. The physical laws that govern women's personal health make periods of depression and excitement not only possible, but certain.

Let us consider for a moment the life of a poor man's wife in London, where her difficulties are increased by high rent and a long absence of the husband. She has the four everlasting walls to look at, eternal anxieties as to the future, the repeated weekly difficulties of making ends meet, and too often the same lack of consideration from the husband.

The week's washing for the family she must do, the mending and darning for the household is her task, the children must be washed and clothed and properly cared for by her. Of her many duties there is no end.

Sickness in the family converts her into a nurse. She herself must bear the pangs and sufferings of motherhood, and for that time must make preparation. For death in the family she must also provide, so the eternities are her concern. Things present and things to come leave her little time to contemplate the past.

Ask me the person of many duties, and I point to the wife of a poor man.

Thank God, the law of compensation rules the universe, and she is not exempt from its ruling. She has her compensations doubtless, but I am seriously afraid not to the extent to which she is entitled, though, perhaps, they are greater than we imagine.

Her duties are not always pleasant, for when her husband falls out of work the rent must be paid, or she must mollify a disappointed landlord. In many of our London "model" dwellings, if she is likely to have a fourth child, three being the limit, she must seek a new home. And it ought to be known that on this account there is a great exodus every year from some of our London "dwellings."

It seems scarcely credible, but it is nevertheless a fact, that in some dwellings she may not keep a cat, a dog, or even a bird, neither may she have flowers in pots on her window-sills. She is hedged round with prohibitions, but she is expected to be superior and to abide in staid respectability on an income of less than thirty shillings per week. And she does it, though how she does it is a marvel.

Come with me to visit Mrs. Jones, who lives at 28, White Elephant Buildings. Mr. Jones is a painter at work for eight months in the year, if he has good luck, but out of work always at that time of the year when housekeeping expenses are highest. For every working man's wife will tell you that coal is always dearer at the time of the year when it is most required. In White Elephant Buildings there is no prohibition as to the number of children, or the Jones family would not be there, for they number eight all told. It is dinner time, and the children are all in from school, and, being winter time, Jones is at home too! He has been his wearying round in search of work earlier in the day, and has just returned to share the midday meal which the mother serves. In all conscience the meal is limited enough, but we notice that Jones gets an undue proportion, and we wonder whether the supply will go round.