IX )NDON PRIDE and IjONDON SHAME
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LONDON PRIDE
AND
LONDON SHAME
BY THE SAME AUTHOR.
"THE CANKER AT THE HEART."
"THE DEFENCELESS ISLANDS."
LONDON PRIDE
AND
LONDON SHAME
BY
L. COPE CORNFORD
LONDON
P. S. KING & SON
ORCHARD HOUSE
WESTMINS T ER
I9IO
BRADBURY, AGNBW & CO., LTD., PRIHTBRS,
LONDON AND TONBR1DGE.
TO
CHRISTABEL CORNFORD
WHO SENT ME TO GA THER LONDON
PRIDE (WHICH THE COUNTRY FOLK
CALL " NONE SO .PRETTY") WHERE
IT GROWS INTERTWINED WITH
LONDON SHAME.
PREFACE
" Why are these things so?
What ought to be done?"
In attempting to delineate certain aspects of the
life of London, and phases connected with that life,
I have dealt directly with several peculiarly distressing
subjects. Upon these I should prefer to refrain from
moralising. It is not my business to moralise. But,
if I may judge by previous experience, it is sometimes
expected of him who diagnoses the disease that he
should prescribe the remedy. Some years ago, I wrote
a series of articles treating of the condition of the
poor in this country. They were first published in The
Standard, and afterwards collected in a book, under
the title of " The Canker at the Heart." Their imme-
diate result — so far as the author was concerned — was
that I received many letters from excellent persons
asking me what " ought to be done ; " and very
often these good people sent me various sums of
money to spend as I thought fit upon the relief of
distress. Some were kind enough to call upon me.
I fear that they went away disappointed, for I had no
saving universal panacea to give them. Is it there-
fore my fault that nothing has been done ?
viii PREFACE.
A year or so afterwards, I wrote another series of
articles, which dealt with the state of this country
with regard to preparation for war and the effects
of war upon all classes of society. These also were
first published in The Standard, and afterwards col-
lected in a book ; and the title was " The Defenceless
Islands." Their immediate result was — nothing.
My publisher sadly informs me from time to time
that no one will buy the book. Sensitive as English
people are to the pathetic, they were (and are)
wholly insensitive to an array of facts which really
represent one of the most dangerous consequences
of that state of things which (to be honest, the
title was presented to me by a friend) I have
called " The Canker at the Heart." People do
not believe that these islands are in any degree
defenceless, and therefore the effects upon the
population of a hypothetical war do not interest
them. Therefore they did not ask me what, in my
view, " ought to be done." I was inclined to regret
this circumstance, because in the case of the
Defenceless Islands, I could have told them. How-
ever, they did not want to know ; and, as in the
other case, nothing has been done — less than
nothing, in fact.
What will happen in the case of " London Pride
and London Shame ? " I hope (for the sake of my
publishers) that a few people, at least, will buy the
book. Let me assume that they have embarked
upon that speculation, and let me also venture for
a moment to assume that these my readers honour
PREFACE. ix
me by supposing that because I have studied from
nature I am therefore competent to suggest how to
set right what is obviously wrong. I admit that the
supposition is natural, although the one thing does
not necessarily follow from the other.
Well, ladies and gentlemen, you have a large and
a varied choice before you, without having recourse
to an humble writer. There is no lack, Heaven
knows, of earnest persons presenting complete
schemes of M social reform," each of which differs
from the other. There is the politician. Social
reforms are part of his stock in trade, which he is
delighted to sell to the highest bidder. There is the
Socialist — there are ever so many Socialists, and
you can pick and choose. There is the minister of
religion ; nor does it matter what religion he pro-
fesses, so that he does his work, and then he
commands respect. There is a new kind of person
called a " sociologist," whose pursuits (I own) so
bewilder me that I can give no account of them.
Still, there he is. There are Societies, Leagues,
Associations, Councils, Committees, beyond all
reckoning. Go to ! Is it to be supposed for a
moment, that all these varied "forms of social
activity " (so runs the slang) are of no worth ?
Then why . . . ?
Then why is it that things are what they are ?
To that question we must ever return. Because
these "social activities" are not new, although of
late they may have become more numerous. They
have been in full blast for ever so long. Read
x PREFACE.
your Dickens. Politicians will tell you of the vast
social improvements achieved since Dickens wrote —
they will discourse of them with an air, as though
themselves had accomplished them. Very well.
Now take the tram to (say) Bermondsey, or any-
where east of Aldgate Pump, and ask to see the
improvements . . .
Well, but why are these things so ?
Dear reader (if you have had the patience to bear
with me thus far), that question haunts me quite as
constantly as it troubles you. There is no answer,
because there are a thousand answers. The only
theory that covers all the facts is the theory of what
used to be called Original Sin. Conversely, the only
cure is contained in that prescription of Virtue
which is the common element of all noble religions.
Now it is the essence of religion that it concerns the
individual. Each human being differs from the other.
Upon that point we can all agree. But see what
follows from that elementary truth. To begin with,
it falsifies all generalisations — yes, all.
Now let us go back to our politicians, our Socialists,
our ministers of religion (but here we must allow for
exceptions), our sociologists, our Societies, Leagues,
Associations, Councils, Committees, tea-meetings,
hymns, resolutions, lectures, speeches, secretaries,
reports, movements, and the whole immense and
desperate apparatus devised by amiable people with
the best intentions. Do they deal in generalisa-
tions, or do they not ? Do they prescribe the
universal panacea, or do they not ? If they do, they
PREFACE. xi
are useless — except incidentally and by accident. If
they do not — but where will you find those who do
not ?
Take a square mile of Black London, and ask how
it is to be civilised ; how it is to be peopled with
healthy, industrious and contented families, how it is
to be made clean and fair ? Instantly arises a chorus
of answers : Pull down, rebuild, drain, educate,
clothe, emigrate, convert, give Free Trade, give
Tariff Reform. . . . Yes, quite so. But you are
dealing with people, not with lay figures. A district,
like a State, is made up of individuals. Each of
those individuals has a character. Can you alter
that character ? Well, try — try for a year. There
are things which, as the Psalmist says, must be let
alone for ever. In that simple fact you will find a
part of the answer to the eternal question, Why are
these things so ? Ignore the individual, merge him
in the mass, and you may do what you will to that
cancerous mile of Black London, and you will find
another growing alongside it, as bad as the first.
Now (for the sake of argument) select one individual
in that area, and find out how he (or she) came to be
what he (or she) is. Do not take anyone else's evi-
dence. Find out for yourself. Eliminate, in so far as
it is possible, the personal qualities of character which
have clearly resulted in such and such conditions
and consequences, What remains ? Much wrong,
perhaps, inflicted by others. Wrong inflicted by
employers, by speculative builders, by landlords, by
the incidence of laws made by professional politicians,
xii PREFACE.
by the dispensers of chanty, by the neighbours.
Conversely, perhaps, many benefits received. But
in Black London, the wrong preponderates.
Contemplate the complexity of that problem. It
is woven of a hundred conflicting interests, preju-
dices, villanies. Its threads ramify throughout the
community. Now multiply the problem by several
millions, and the product will be what is called the
11 social problem " of to-day.
Add to it the burden of preceding generations —
without going further back than the time before
the (very inadequate) Factory laws were passed (in
the teeth of the Liberal party), when England was
stained blacker with greed and cruelty than the Congo
State — and you will begin to perceive the length of
the bill which destiny is presenting to-day. That bill
must be paid. And it carries compound interest.
When people ask in all generosity and sincerity,
11 What is to be done ? " they are really asking how
to pay the bill — or (in the case of politicians) how to
avoid paying it.
The settlement may beggar you. On that point
one has no definite opinion. Other nations have
been ruined by the same implacable Creditor ; others,
again, have found the price and gone on.
There is only one thing to be done, and its name
is Duty. A dull conclusion, is it not ? But consider.
If each individual in each class of society had done
his duty, there would be no " social problem " to-day.
Duty cannot be done in battalions. It must be done
PREFACE. xiii
by the one. Therefore (it seems) the less shouting
there is, the better ; the fewer societies there are,
the better ; the less theory-making there is, the
better.
It would be hard to discover a better definition
of duty than the marching orders contained in the
Church Catechism. And when we come to this
point, the reason why the writer has hitherto re-
frained from suggesting "what ought to be done,"
is surely apparent.
L/. C C
Red Hill,
January, 1 910.
CONTENTS
I. — The Abbey .
II.— Paul's.
III. — The Royal Hospital at G
IV. — Port of London
V.— Waste
VI. — The Commons
VII.— "The Park" .
VIII. — Bank Holiday .
IX. — Fleet Street
X. — Free Speech
XI. — Woman's Suffrage
XII. — Orators
XIII. — The Creche
XIV. — Famine
XV. — The Heart of Spring
XVI. — Playmates .
XVII.— T. S. "Mercury"
XVIII.— Medical .
XIX. — Surgical
XX. — Culture
XXI. — Sport
XXII. — The Yacht Race
XXIII.— Margate .
XXIV. — The General
XXV. — Imperialism
XXVI.— Mr. Betterman
XXVII. -The Wreckers .
XXVIII.— Pictures .
XXIX.— The Pageant .
xxx. — Tbw Signs
reenwich
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LONDON PRIDE
AND
LONDON SHAME
I.— THE ABBEY.
" ' Death in the right cause, Death in the wrong cause, trumpets of
victory, groans of defeat ' ;
Yes ; but it's better to go for the Abbey than chuck your old bones
out in the street."
The grey cliff of carven stone, rising in the very heart
of the Imperial City, looks austerely down upon the con-
verging, sunlit roads and the motley rush of traffic, the little
people coming and going, and the tired men asleep on the
benches among the sooty statues. L^pon this blue Sunday
morning, the Corps of Commissionaires is dispersing
through Westminster Palace Yard, after having been in-
spected in Westminster Hall . Fine, bronzed, soldierly men
are these, the medals shining upon their dark uniforms,
from the stout old warriors with the shrewd eye and that
imperturbable, humorous expression of the veteran, to the
lean hard fellows of forty or so, who are fit for anything,
anywhere. Why these men are denied the Army, when its
ranks are being filled with weedy boys, collected, not with-
out persuasion, from the highways and hedges, is one of the
mysteries of the British Constitution.
High overhead, half shrouded in shadow, half lapped
in sunlight, towers the Abbey, and the bells of little
L.P.L.S. B
2 LONDON PRIDE AND LONDON SHAME.
St. Margaret's are chiming for service, and the quality
are stepping daintily across the watered road, while the
Commissionaires break off in twos and threes, and go their
way, shoulder to shoulder, marching in time . The Abbey
service has already begun, and the people are still pressing
through the doors in the north transept.
Within, crowded in the brown gloom, sombrely carpet-
ing this vast ribbed shell of the ages' handiwork, is such a
congregation as you will find nowhere else in the wide
world. " And how hear we every man in our own tongue,
wherein we were born? Parthians, and Medes, and
Elamites, and the dwellers in Mesopotamia, and in Judaea,
and Cappadocia, in Pontus, and Asia, Phrygia, and Pam-
phylia, in Egypt, and in the parts of Lybia about Cyrene,
and strangers of Rome, Jews and proselytes, Cretes and
Arabians, we do hear them speak in our tongues the won-
derful works of God." So said the dwellers in the Holy
City, what time the Christian hegemony was founded. And
so, with a change in that sounding roll of place-names,
may we say, too. "And they were all amazed," the
chronicle adds. We are not amazed. We take it as a
matter of course, that in the heart's core the Empire should
be gathered together, English and Canadian and Austra-
lian, Indian from East and West, African and Newfound-
lander, dwellers in Asia and Egypt, and Cathay, and the
isles of the Pacific, strangers from America, and near every
nation in Europe.
Yet here they are, upon any Sunday you like to choose,
filling the benches in transepts and choir and beneath the
high -piled, dusky lantern, standing crowded along wall and
sculptured monument, a mosaic of humanity. Scan the
faces, and you shall presently perceive that they make a
pattern, each presenting an aspect or a corner of character
and race, just as the great rose window gleaming above
him in the shadow, is set with broken, jewelled pieces,
and yet makes a complete whole of a seizing and beautiful
significance. . . . Here are British youth, high -collared
and trim, and English ladies, fresh and cool in summer
THE ABBEY. 3
white, and dim old grey-beards, and burly, keen-eyed men
from England overseas, and veiled Indian ladies, and
narrow -shouldered, vacuous clerks, school teachers with
that look of quiet adequacy which distinguishes them,
demure girls with their hair in a ribbon, dear old ladies in
black with silver spectacles, uniformed nurses from the
hospital over the way, a ruddy country parson and his wife,
sleek -haired schoolboys, a pair of dark-skinned brothers
in shiny black attire, a Frenchman with his hair like a
brush, and an American youth in very loose garments and
carrying a camera instead of a prayer-book. Above them,
set high and white against the tumbled background of
column and arch and foliated panel and confused sculp-
ture, stand the stone figures of statesmen and sailors and
soldiers. There they stand for ever, their heads turned
sideways, as though listening to the monotone of the priest
in the chancel, whose voice dies away and is lost in those
enormous aisles.
" Mortality, behold and fear
What a change of flesh is here I
Think how many royal bones
Sleep within these heaps of stones ;
Here they lie, had realms and lands.
Who now want strength to stir their hands,
Where from their pulpits seal'd with dust
They preach, ' In greatness is no trust.' "
What Francis Beaumont wrote, needs not to be re-
written. The diverse congregation drifts in and out this
tremendous sepulchre like the tide, ever changing, and ever
the same, and the end of the eminent is that their memorials
stand there over against you, petrified and listening for
ever, until. . . .
The full chant of the Credo fills the brown walls from
side to side, now rising like a march of triumph, now fall-
ing like a dirge, and, poising on a single note, swells again
into the flood of harmony. Mortality, behold and fear not ;
for, every English hand had a part in this great fabric, the
symbol of that building which is not made with hands, and
which shall endure, though kingdoms fall away and
Empires crumble. The Abbey is the lode -stone of the race,
B 2
4 LONDON PRIDE AND LONDON SHAME.
the central knot of the lines of all the little lives that circle
about the immemorial walls, circling wider and yet wider,
away beyond the far horizons, to " regions Csesar never
knew," although, very likely, they think not of it.
And when the silver-haired preacher, robed in white and
glimmering scarlet, stands uplifted in the tawny twilight
above the congregation, he tells them that the message of
the Christian faith shines pure and apart from the strife
of the schools and the hurly-burly of politics ; and reminds
them of the Great Queen, the woman who reigned for sixty
years over the English, and tells them bluntly that, so long
as women are held unworthy of the full rights of citizen-
ship, we remain untrue to the lesson of that majestic life.
. . . To his clear tones succeeds the great voice of the
solemn music, and the service is ended.
At the door stood a handsome old man in blue jersey
and cork jacket, holding a gold plate of great size, into
which one dropped a coin for the Royal National Lifeboat
Institution. To pass out into the sunlight is to step across
the threshold of a thousand sleeping years into the unend-
ing trivial bustle of to-day. The whirlpool circles ever
about the still centre, casting up flotsam and jetsam of
humanity. But the influence of the Abbey clothes them,
perhaps, with a peculiar significance. Somewhere here,
if you think it worth while to let fancy stray so far, sat
King Alfred's men-at-arms, drowsing in the sunshine of
a Sunday. And here, upon the garden seat, rests an old
soldier. His face is wan and corded ; he is dressed in
rough working clothes, his jacket buttoned over a brown
jersey. When he was fifteen, he began to work in Covent
Garden Market, what time the policemen wore tall hats
and bob - tailed coats, and London was as Dickens drew
it. Then he enlisted and went to Hong-Kong in the old
Himalaya, and to Ceylon and Singapore and the Cape.
Then he came back to the market, a time-expired man, to
see his old friends, and within a fortnight he was a porter
again. He is a licensed porter now, and he works from
three in the morning until six in the evening on market
THE ABBEY. 5
days, and the grey hair is worn off the top of his head,
making a bald patch like a tonsure, by reason of carrying
fruit -boxes.
Here were a couple of bluejackets in Sunday rig, stout
and leisurely ; here two men of the Irish Guards — " picked
men," said my porter, his eyes following the gold buttons ;
then a workman with his small daughter in a clean pina-
fore ; then a frock-coated gentleman with a high nose ;
then a street tramp, all one dry smear from his ruined hat
to his broken boots, but placid, pink -faced, and soft-
fingered. Then a young man sat down on the bench
opposite, and began to write on a pad. Perhaps he was
writing poetry about the Abbey. ... All bits of mosaic,
like the jewelled glass in the great rose window, yonder.
The American youth with the camera, and another like
unto him, sat down beside us.
" Say," said the second, " this is a large city. Seems
expensive. How long does it take to get around? '
" You can get a sixpenny guide to the Abbey," said he
of the camera. " And the clergy show you round for
nothing. And it don't take long to skim through the
British Museum "
I went away. I went into the cloisters. There was none
of the all -conquering race in the cloisters. There was only
a solitary policeman, who was cogitating profoundly upon
the prospect of getting a reward for stopping a runaway
pair-horse van. " I made a mistake," he said. " I didn't
put into my report ' at great personal risk.' The sergeant,
he says, ' You've forgot it, my man.' But does he put it?
Not he. He puts in, ' not attended by personal risk.' I
don't mind. When the point comes up, I shall say, ' Gen-
tlemen, I did not look for any private reward. I was
actuated by motives of the public safety.' ' He turned
from the sunlit square of grass and the glittering bulk of
the Abbey rising into the blue, glanced up and down the
mouldering, shadowy cloister, and added, inconsequently,
" The constable on night duty here gets extra pay."
When Mr. Grewj v\ iting Cloisterham ('which, as
6 LONDON PRIDE AND LONDON SHAME.
everyone knows, is Rochester) came to the open doors of
the Cathedral, " ' Dear me,' sai<jLMr. Grewgious, peeping
in, ' it's like looking down the throat of Old Time.' " When
you enter the Abbey after service, and the people have
departed, that is what it is like. Empty with a great and
yawning emptiness, save for a black -robed verger or two,
and an old almsman creeping along the wall, the Abbey,
column and pier and arch, set with memorials of the dead,
hung here and there with dim and tattered flags, mysterious
in profound shadow or flushed, wine-hued, where the sun-
light strikes in a*misty beam through stained glass, is the
very entrance to immortality and oblivion. The organ
breaks forth, and the music rises like a sea, and rolls even
to the groined roof ; and in its wordless message lies hid
the meaning of a thousand years' past of the dark Fane
beside the River, and (as we believe) a thousand years
to come.
PAUL'S
II.— PAUL'S.
" Here, in streaming London's central roar,
Let the sound of those he wrought for,
And the feet of those he fought for,
Echo round his bones for evermore."
AT a quarter before six, the nave and transepts of St.
Paul's Cathedral are filled with men who use the sea ; men
of the Royal Navy, of the mercantile marine, and boys
who are under training for England's first and last inherit-
ance, the sea. Back, far back, into the vast shadows of
that place of silence, whose gloom was but faintly starred
with lamps, stretched the field of grave faces. Old men
of eighty winters, hair and beard like the snow upon a root
of oak, youngsters with the low forehead and sturdy jaw
of the breed, grey men of middle age, trim naval officers,
white-gloved, in full uniform, officers of the Naval Volun-
teers, with the twisted stripe on their sleeves, retired
Admirals and Captains — all were massed in perfect silence,
waiting for the noble service which Mother Church admin-
isters to British seamen once a year in St. Paul's. And
beneath their feet Nelson, dead a hundred years and more,
slept under his carven tomb, in the unfathomable silence
of the crypt.
Not a sound of the unending rush of the London traffic
broke the stillness. Then, high overhead, the solemn bells
chimed six. Then came the blue-uniformed cadets of the
Worcester, marching two by two, then the boys of the
school of the Royal Hospital at Greenwich, most notable
of all sea foundations, wearing their sailor collars outside
their surplices ; then the choir. Followed the clergy,
headed by the Bishop of Victoria and the Dean of the Falk-
8 LONDON PRIDE AND LONDON SHAME.
land Isles, those far outposts of Empire, and last, preceded
by the verger bearing the golden crozier, came the Bishop
of London, the prelate who is the brother of all wayfaring
men and seafarers .
The organ peals, and Wren's magnificent architecture,
dimly gleaming here and there with rich sculpture and gold
of mosaic, springs to new meaning in those waves
of harmony.
" All people that on earth do dwell ." . . . The whole four
thousand men are singing, and the little Greenwich choir
boys open their mouths round as an O, like the cherubs
in old pictures. Then arises the single musical voice that
penetrates to every corner of the enormous building,
making submission above the bowed heads to the Creator
of earth and heaven and the sea . Then all sing the Psalm
that tells how though the waters rage and swell, and though
the mountains shake at the tempest of the same, yet the
rivers of the flood thereof shall make glad the city of God.
Far beyond the vision of the old Hebrew poet, reaches the
meaning of his words to the England, whose " wealth, pros-
perity and peace " came by the sea. And they who use the
sea are all poor men, and four thousand of them are
gathered here to-day, beneath the dark and lofty dome,
whose gold cross glitters high in air above the metropolis
of the world. And who made England? These men, and
such as these.
The Chaplain of the Fleet ('no finer sounding title graces
the Church of England) read the First Lesson, which told
how the Prophet Jonah, having come to port after his en-
gagement in the first submarine, made his oblation to the
Most High. And after the Psalm, the Second Lesson, read
by the Bishop of Auckland, recited how the Saviour of
the world walked upon the sea — " and when they were; come
out of the ship, straightway they knew Him."
The Bishop of London spoke to the men who had come
out of the ships to hear him — " not as a Bishop," he said,
"•but as a brother." Simple and straightforward, he told
the sailors how they needed " an anchor for the soul."
PAUL'S. 9
" One of the things which makes us all so proud of you,"
said the Bishop, " is the pluck with which you face danger."
He spoke truth. Neglect the men of the sea as we may,
not one of us who dwells at ease ashore but is proud of
them. And the Bishop showed the sailors how they might
find and let drop and hold fast to that anchor of the soul,
of which the great apostle (himself a seafarer, as the picture
in the chapel of Greenwich Hospital shows) spoke in his
letter to the Hebrews. " My brothers," said the Bishop,
' if we find no love we are lost indeed." 'And his words
ma}- well be considered by the folk ashore who live by
virtue of the men of the sea — the silent, hardy men of the
sea, whose lot none other can ever fully enter into or com-
prehend.
But once a year, on Trafalgar Day, the Church receives
the sailors in the great Cathedral, and gives them admoni-
tion and her blessing, an admirable custom which Captain
R. R. Hubbard did so much to establish. May it endure
for ever, so that once in the year shall the descendants of
Nelson's men and their kindred gather together above his
resting-place under the dome of Paul's.
W. E. HENLEY.
" Now I dare say, said Sir Ector, thou Sir Lancelot, there thou
liest, that thou were never matched of earthly knight's hand. And
thou were the courteoust knight that ever bare shield. And thou
were the truest friend to thy lover that ever bestrad horse. And
thou were the truest lover of a sinful man that ever struck with
sword. And thou were the goodliest person that ever came among
press of knights. And thou was the meekest man and the gentlest
that ever ate in hall among ladies. And thou were the sternest
knight to thy mortal foe that ever put spear in the rest."
A stone chamber, lit from overhead ; the Archdeacon
of St. Paul's Cathedral, in his robes and scarlet hood ; a
half circle of grave faces, thickening dimly into the vast
shadows of the Crypt ; and set breast-high in the centre
of the wall, framed in white marble, a bronze head, noble
and melancholy and austere. This is the picture which
io LONDON PRIDE AND LONDON SHAME.
rises in the mind when one surveys the set of octavo
volumes lettered " The Works of W. E. Henley " — the de-
finitive edition. On July n, 1907, the fourth anniver-
sary of the poet's death, the memorial of a great son of
England was received into St. Paul's Cathedral. Auguste
Rodin, the renowned French sculptor, wrought his head
in bronze twenty odd years ago, when Henley was thirty -
seven. When he died, M. Rodin designed the marble set-
ting, in which the bronze stands enshrined in St. Paul's
Cathedral, and shall stand so long as the building made
with hands endures.
" Et cela nous encourage," wrote M. Rodin, " d'aimer
un homme qui a si bien fait son devoir dans la vie en*
s'appuyant sur la beaute."
Here, in England, Henley's work is known. .Even his
enemies — for he made enemies, being born a fighting man
— respect it. To 1 his kinsfolk overseas it is but little known ;
but it will be known. What they will never know is how
he backed them in times of trouble, and backed their
friends, and fought for the Imperial ideal near single-
handed in his weekly journal, when as yet England was
asleep. Benjamin Disraeli Lord Beaconsfield, Henley,
Kipling — these three names are lit by that inspiration,
which is spreading like a fire. But Beaconsfield was dead
— his great rival outlasted him, and achieved Majuba and
the death of Gordon — when a young man came to London
town from India. His name was Rudyard Kipling, and
he dwelt alone for a season and wrote verses, at a time
when the Irish enemies of England were doing after their
kind. Who was it printed " Cleared " —
" Cleared — you that ' lost ' the League accounts — go guard our
honour still,
Go, help to make our country's laws that broke God's law at will —
One hand stuck out behind the back, to signal ' strike again ' ;
The other on your dress -shirt front to show your heart is clane."
— when every other editor in London was afraid ? Who but
Henley of the National Observer ? Who printed the greater
number of the first " Barrack -Room Ballads " and " Tom-
linson " and the " English Flag " ? Henley of the National
PAUL'S. M
Observer. Turn up the old volumes of that journal and
you shall see how Henley wrought for England. Things,
of course, are now quite different. Kipling's verses have
rung throughout the Empire ; all of us are Imperialists
now ; but I am referring to a generation since.
" So he loved England," said Mr. Wyndham, speaking;
at the memorial service. " He loved the valour of England
at war, when ' the loneliest death is fair with a memory
of her flowers.' And he loved the plenty of England in
peace."
War ! When the war befell in South Africa the National
Observer was dead, like many another gallant and honest
and imprudent venture ; and Henley, vexed by ill -health,
sat in his study and ate his heart, and wrote " Verses and
Songs in Time of War."
" Southern Cross and Polar Star —
Here are the Britains bred afar ;
Serry, O serry them, fierce and keen,
Under the flag of the Empress -Queen ;
Shoulder to shoulder down the track,
Where to the unretreating Jack,
The victor bugles of England play
Over the hills and far away ! "
Who, then, was this man who lived and died poor, and
made no figure in the great world, yet wielded an extra-
ordinary power, and did as much in the only way destiny
left open to him as any Englishman of his time to accom-
plish the Imperial ideal ; and who is now numbered among
the mighty dead, enshrined in St. Paul's?
William Ernest Henley was born in Gloucester city in
1849, and he went to the Crypt School, and was taught
by T. E. Brown, poet and scholar, concerning whom you
shall find all that need be said in the fourth volume of
Henley's " Works." What manner of child he was is
shadowed in the " Arabian Nights' Entertainments "
(Vol. I. Works). How,
' In the sleepy Minster City, folded kind
In am ient Severn's arm,
Amongst her water-meadows and ber docks
Romance,
12 LONDON PRIDE AND LONDON SHAME.
The Angel -Playmate, raining down
His golden influences
On all I saw, and all I dreamed and did,
Walked with me arm in arm
Of the broad-shouldered, tall youth who dragged a dis-
eased foot all the way to Edinburgh because surgeons
failed, and Lister's fame was noised abroad, we know
nothing till we come to the " Hospital Verses." He lost
his foot, and was a maimed man all his days, often tor-
tured by illness, always indomitably courageous. Pen-
niless, near friendless, he came to town ; got work —
achieved such brilliant stuff as you shall read in the Views
and Reviews — and wrote verses. For a long time he
edited The Magazine of Art; then he took command of
the Scots Observer, a weekly journal which, when its head-
quarters were moved to London, became the National Ob-
server. Henley was summoned to Edinburgh to take
charge at a moment's notice ; went to a friend's house,
and sat down then and there to edit the paper. Then and
there appeared a new force in journalism ; militant, vital,
inspiring, hard-hitting, generous, brilliantly informed, and
of an amazing range of knowledge.
Here was a man of power and enthusiasm and genius,
utterly fearless and of " a magnificent geniality " of heart,
fit to hew out a kingdom — and he was editing a paper,
plunged " neck -deep into that quag of journey work." The
writer remembers him in those days ; a person of great
build and stature, bearded like the pard, with a grip like a
blacksmith's, the gaze of a lion, and the port of a born
commander. He entered the room, supporting himself with
one hand upon the wall, and leaning heavily on his ivory-
handled stick. We talked of the new countries oversea —
" the Britains bred afar " — and his shrewd, intent eyes
looked very far away. " I should have been there," he
said. "But . . ."
All that pent and splendid fire and energy went into the
National Observer, into his verses, his essays, and — most
memorably — into his talk and his influence over the men
who came to him. And there were few aspirants in litera-
PAUL'S. 13
ture who did not write for him, none of worth who did not
learn from him. But not only these : statesmen, soldiers,
sailors, men of their hands in every walk of life, came to
Henley.
A single reminiscence will serve to adumbrate the man's
own point of view. He had been placed next to Lord
Roberts at dinner, and he said afterwards to the writer :
" I felt all the time, what was I, after all ? A miserable
penster, sitting next the man who led the march to
Kandahar and took Cabul ! . . . Just a miserable blotter
of paper ! "
Among those who gathered together in the crypt of St.
Paul's on that grey July day to witness the unveiling of
the memorial to one of the last of the great Victorians,
were statesmen, soldiers, men of letters, journalists, nove-
lists, men of science, painters, musicians. The Earl of
Plymouth presented the memorial to the Dean and Chapter,
as a " tribute of a friendship that no time can kill." Mr.
George Wyndham pronounced an eloquent eulogy ; the
Archdeacon, in the name of the Dean and Chapter,
accepted the memorial . The bronze simulacrum of a great
son of England, who looked forward to a nobler Empire
than he would live to see, stares for ever into the vast
shadows of that place of silence.
But in his books there lives and thrills for ever the spirit
of England ; the spirit of England everywhere, in this
green island or overseas, the which, so long as it wakes
and wills, there is nothing can withstand.
14 LONDON PRIDE AND LONDON SHAME.
HI._THE ROYAL HOSPITAL AT
GREENWICH.
" Her other domes — her wealth, her pride,
Her science may declare ;
But Greenwich hath the noblest claim —
Her gratitude is there."
L.E. L.
SOME ten weeks after the sea fight which England com-
memorates yearly, the body of the Most Noble Lord
Horatio Nelson, Vice -Admiral of the White Squadron of the
Fleet, was brought home to the Royal Hospital for Sea-
men at Greenwich. All up and down the river that winter's
day the bells were tolling, minute guns were booming, and
colours flew half-mast high. The great iron Water-Gates
of the Hospital stood wide to receive the coffin. Between
the stately palaces of dead kings and queens, past the
central statue of King George the Second, up the steps to
the terrace, the funeral train bore the hero into the Painted
Hall. They laid him upon the catafalque set up on the
dais, there to lie in state during four days. So Nelson
came home from the sea, to the people of the sea, his own
people.
On January 8 they took him away, in a storm of wind
and rain. " The coffin was brought by river to the Admir-
alty in a long procession of State barges, attended by nine
Admirals, five hundred Greenwich Pensioners, and the Lord
Mayor and Corporation of London, and received at
Whitehall Stairs by Norroy King of Arms, with nine
heralds and pursuivants. On the 9th the funeral went in
procession to St. Paul's, where it may be said that England
herself was visibly present. . . ."
THE ROYAL HOSPITAL AT GREENWICH. i 5
But Nelson lay first of all among his own men, the men
of the sea, who, like him, had worn ships thin beneath
their feet in patrol and vigil, watching and chasing ; men
who walked naked into carnage, going joyful as to a fes-
tival ; and who now, maimed and scarred, received their
greatest captain, dead, in the palace, the gift of a Queen.
The wide quadrangle opens upon the river, where the
red -sailed barges glide up and down upon the tide, silent
as a dream ; where the big cargo -boats pause in mid-
current, and are turned about with a sturdy tug at bow and
stern, and steam up-river to the docks, and drop down
again and round the point and are gone. " The present
situation of the Hospital was preferred," says the eight-
eenth - century history of that noble foundation, with its
charming simplicity, " on account of its being so very con-
spicuous and in the very sight of London, to and from
which port the great number of ships continually passing
and repassing would afford constant entertainment to those
who had retired from the business of a seafaring life."
Looking inland from the Water -Gate, there are Queen
Anne's palace on the left, King Charles the Second's palace
on the right ; beyond, on the left, Queen Mary's palace,
and the palace of her husband, King William, on the right.
Sir Christopher Wren, Sir John Vanbrugh and James
Stuart the Grecian, designed these sedate and splendid
structures. The columned domes of the Chapel on the
left, and of the Painted Hall on the right, sentinel the
paved square rising on a terrace of steps from the quad-
rangle. It is closed in at the further end by railings, and
past the railings runs the traffic of the highway, and beyond
the tramways and passengers, the railings of Greenwich
School mask the hull of the drill ship, whose spars tower
above the Queen's house.
In the centre of the paved square, overtopped by the two
domes, and midmost of the majestic colonnade, stands
I li.mtrey's bust of Nelson, all blackened with the London
smoke, ever gazing straight across the green lawns of the
quadrangle at the perpetual pageant of the river. The
1 6 LONDON PRIDE AND LONDON SHAME.
place is very quiet. A naval pensioner, bent and white,
stands leaning on his stick. A naval officer passes on his
way to lecture. A little group of visitors loiters on the
steps of the Painted Hall. The hoot of a siren sounds
from the river.
King Charles the Second began to build the palace, but
he slept with his fathers ere it was finished. It was Queen
Mary who persuaded King William to continue the work,
to found a great endowment, and to give the buildings and
the money to sick and disabled seamen. " For want of a
safe harbour wherein they might anchor, and an asylum
wherein they might repose, after the fatigues, hardships,
and dangers which they had encountered, few only escaped
from the accumulated distresses of poverty, infirmity and
pain. To behold the Protectors of a Nation which she
loved, cruelly abandoned under such circumstances, ex-
cited her royal compassion ; and one of the last acts of
her exemplary life was the proposal of an institution which
should provide for those unfortunate, but highly deserv-
ing, sufferers." Thus the Rev. John Cooke, A.M., and
the Rev. John Maule, A.M., Chaplains of the Hospital,
who, in their courtly eighteenth-century prose, wrote the
History of the Hospital in the year of our Lord 1789.
Thus did the pleasure - house of kings become the
Palace of the Sea. A veteran company of old sailors dwelt
in these lofty chambers, dined every day in the Painted
Hall, and worshipped God in the chapel, whose neo-
Grecian design is second to none in England. Here, in-
deed, was a gift worthy of a Queen. For once, during the
fighting centuries of English history, the men who served
their country were rightly honoured. The King's men
dwelt in the King's house. And one day, borne shoulder-
high through the Water-Gate, the greatest of them all came
to the house of heroes.
But kings' palaces did not make home for the seamen
because they could not have their wives and children with
them. So they got permission to dwell outside the pre-
cincts, retaining their pension, and the Palace of the Sea
THE ROYAL HOSPITAL AT GREENWICH. 17
was gradually deserted. Then, some twenty or thirty years
ago, under Lord Goschen's administration at the Admir-
alty, the Royal Hospital became the University of the Sea.
Officers of all ranks came there to study. The Queen's
gift was turned to new uses. And between the time of
Queen Mary and the time of Queen Victoria, Nelson had
come to the hospital, dead but immortal.
Within a few steps of the very spot in the Painted Hall
where the Admiral lay in state, there stands a glass case
in which is displayed the uniform he wore the day of Tra-
falgar. Here is the blue coat set with the dim stars and
Orders, and studded with the thin gold anchor buttons.
Beside the tarnished epaulette is a little ragged hole. The
waistcoat and the stockings, faded grey-white, are darkly
stained. The foot of the stockings is no bigger than a
woman's ; but the wearer trod on the neck of Europe.
Near by are other cases containing the costly mementoes
of the hero who followed honour alone, and set no store
by wealth of gear. Among gilded swords of honour, massy,
caskets, medals, seals, silver plate, that which dwells in
the mind is the dress sword that was placed on his coffin
when he lay in state ; the lean, delicate sword, the symbol
of honour, And here, too, there springs to the eye the
Admiral's handwriting, the odd, angular script widely
spaced upon the square paper.
Below the dais, or Upper Hall, which is the shrine of
Nelson, the Great Hall itself, canopied by Thornhill's vast
magnificence of design, displays the pictured majesty of
a thing unparalleled in history, the sea power of England.
Sea fights rage soundlessly in a tumult of rolling smoke
and sheets of flames and tangle of wreckage mingled with
the massed bodies of struggling men. Commodore Nel-
son's slight figure, sword in hand, boards the San Nicolas,
amid the hurling press of assault, shoulder to shoulder.
Admiral Duncan receives the sword of the Dutch Admiral
De Winter, aboard the Venerable, alter the battle of Cam-
perdown. The Bellerophon heaves upon the twilight, an-
( hored in Plymouth Sound, what time the townsfolk put
L.P.L.S. C
1 8 LONDON PRIDE AND LONDON SHAME.
off in boats to stare upon Napoleon, standing on the quar-
terdeck, a prisoner.
But here, above all, are the portraits of Nelson's band
of brothers : Admiral John Jervis, Earl of St. Vincent,
he who broke the mutiny and forged the weapon which
Nelson wielded ; Hood, Saumarez, Parker, Pellew, Martin,
Collingwood, Hardy, who was Nelson's flag-captain, and
afterwards Governor of Greenwich Hospital, and many
another hero . And here, too, are Drake and Hawkins and
Howard, their sea -ancestors. They are all of them right
Englishmen. And all of them look from out the jewelled
canvas with that indefinable, yet unmistakable, expression
which is the mark of their calling. It is the sign of the
sea. It is not loyalty, or courage, or alertness, or deter-
mination, or endurance — though it is all these. It cannot
be conveyed in words. There is but one word that lights
its signification — Duty.
Amid the wrack and blaze of great sea -battles, and the
august company of British seamen, stands the frail figure
of Nelson, noble and melancholy and austere. In him, as
in the heroes of fjable, centres the glory of an age, ttfe
splendour of a nameless and a spiritual tradition. Dead,
he entered by the Water-Gate, a hundred years ago, and
his own men brought him from the Hospital to St. Paul's.
But in the long, low room which is the Hospital Museum,
you shall see to-day the model of the fight of Trafalgar,
toy ships sailing on a painted sea ; and to-day the walls
are hung with flags and wreathed as for victory ; and an
old, grey -bearded sailor tells the story of the battle, ship
by ship, as though he had been there. Were the dead
Admiral (his right sleeve pinned to his breast) to pass by
in the shadow, he would be at home. And his lordship
would be at home amid the dusky colonnades and the trim
lawns, whence he might view the ships going by upon the
tide — and not a ship, nor an ounce of cargo, nor a penny
piece of the merchant's counting-house which does not owe
its security to Nelson's conquest of the sea. On the right
hand, high up in Queen Anne's palace, gloom the three
THE ROYAL HOSPITAL AT GREENWICH. 19
windows from which Admiral Byng looked his last;, before
going down to Portsmouth to execution. He was shot to
save the place and power of a treacherous Government,
the year before Nelson was born. Vice-Admiral Nelson,
too, suffered betrayal by the Government, after his death.
Musing beneath these windows he would understand. And
the lieutenants, chasing X down the wide corridors, and
dining at the long tables, in whose centre stands the like-
ness of the Nelson Column, wrought in solid silver — the
Vice - Admiral would know them all at a glance of his
brooding eyes.
For this is the University of the Sea, founded on the
day when they brought Nelson through the Water -Gate,
and into the Painted Hall, dead, but immortal.
NELSON'S NURSERY.
In the middle of the stone-paved square, closed in to
left and right by massive colonnades, the band of Green-
wich School is making martial music. The little drum-
major stands in front, wielding a staff as tall as himself,
and himself is not very tall, but exceedingly majestic.
Near by, on the steps of the terrace, are the Admiral of the
Royal Naval College, two or three other naval officers,,
and a captain of marines. Aside is a bevy of ladies in
bright -hued dresses. The Chaplain of the Fleet walks
across from his quarters in King Charles' Palace. On the
left, beneath the colonnade, flows a tide of blue-uniformed
boys, which turns into the chapel. In the background the
marble head of Nelson, wrought by Chantrey, gazes serene
and august, uplifted on its pedestal. And beyond the high
railings enclosing the upper end of the square rise the masts
and yards of the school drillship Fame, making a delicate
pattern of tracery in front of the Queen's House. Beyond
again the sun lights upon the green shoulder of the hill,
crowned with the domes of the Observatory. It is the
Sunday morning preceding the anniversary of Trafalgar.
Within the chapel, near a thousand young bluejackets
C 2
6
20 LONDON PRIDE AND LONDON SHAME.
are ranged orderly in the solid mahogany benches, fillin
the whole floor. Above, in the centre of the side gallery,
sits the Captain commanding the school ; opposite to
him is the Admiral's seat. The choir files into the
chancel, wearing sailor collars over their surplices. The
hazy autumn sunlight, striking through the south windows,
lights West's great picture framed upon the wall above
the altar. The figure of the great Apostle stands
radiantly forth, shaking the viper from his hand, amid
the moveless silent sweep and tumult of shipwrecked
men crowding thick in the vast mysterious shadow.
Upon the wall on either side a white angel hovers,
carved in immaculate marble. The altar is a slab
of white marble supported by bronze - coloured cary-
atides, delicately wrought ; the pavement a geometrical
design of black marble and white ; the altar rails are of
coloured marble from Devonshire, the country of seafaring
men ; the columns supporting the organ loft are monoliths
of grey marble. Column and frieze and entablature, cor-
nice and panel and architrave, all are most finely moulded
to the refinement of the Greek, by James Stuart, he who
brought the art of Athens to England, towards the end of
the eighteenth century. You shall not find the match in
England of the chapel of the Royal Hospital at Greenwich.
And now it is dedicated to the boys of the Royal Navy,
as it was to their fathers and grandfathers, before the
Greenwich Pensioners went to live outside the Hospital.
That was twenty or thirty years ago, when the Hospital,
the gift of Mary, King William's Queen, to the Navy, be-
came the Royal Naval College, the University of the Sea.
The sunlight burnishes here and there the close-cropped
heads of the youngsters, sons of Navy men all, and as
many as may be due to enter the Service. Some pictured
memory of this majestic and beautiful church they all carry
with them to their lives' end. What time the quarterdeck
is screened on fine Sunday mornings, and the Chaplain's
voice sounds lonely in the silence of the open sea, or, in
rainy weather, crowded on the shelter deck, the old Green-
THE ROYAL HOSPITAL AT GREENWICH. 21
wich boy may behold again the solid glossy marble pave-
ment and the great dark and rose-coloured picture above
the altar, sentinelled by angels, of St. Paul his shipwreck.
A hard life, but a man's life, lies before them ; exile, and
everlasting routine, and foul weather. They shall know the
humours of the sea, and learn the mind of the officers,
round the world and back again, just as they have seen
the voyage of Anson figured on the stone globes of the
gateway. . . .
The hymn . The whole school rises thunderously at the
same moment, and bursts into melody, most like the blasts
of trumpets. Then the Chaplain, preceded by the verger
bearing the silver mace, mounts the pulpit by the winding
stair, and shuts himself in with the double-hinged door,
and stands aloft. He speaks simply and briefly of the great
victory which is to be celebrated in a few days, and the!
example of Nelson. Not doctrine, but duty, is his theme.
The service ended, the band plays the congregation out
of the College precincts and across the road to the school.
The boys form up in companies in the great quadrangle,
and stand to attention. The band is posted beside the
ship. Near by stands the Captain. A moment's silence
in the hot sunshine, and the band strikes up the National
Anthem, all saluting. Then they dismiss. In two minutes
there is not a boy visible.
The officers inhabit the Queen's House, which was built
for Queen Henrietta Maria for her pleasure. A broad,
flagged corridor leads from the square hall right through
the house, into sunshine and the green slopes of the park-
Left and right, closing in the quadrangle, are the school
buildings, connected by colonnades to the Queen's House.
In the vast gymnasium the bugle is calling for dinner.
Boys come pounding past at a run. In the long mess-
room, with the portraits of the King and Queen, one on
cither sid<- the door, the cooks to the mess, four boys in
white aprons to each mess, stand beside the tables. The
boys pour down the centre gangway at the double, and
22 LONDON PRIDE AND LONDON SHAME.
the solid building trembles. A moment and they are stand-
ing silent in their places. A warrant officer mounts a
table and gives the word, and a thousand boys sing grace
before meat, most like to the blast of trumpets. The
bugle sounds, then they fall to. What they want, like
other Service men, is " bulk in their inside." They get it,
and get it quicker than you would suppose possible.
Here they all are, sturdy youngsters, dark and fair, tall
and short, all cropped as to the head, and all stamped
already with the seal of discipline. Look more nearly at
them (they will look you fairly in the eyes), and you shall
see the very same dogged cast of feature that is observ-
able in the seamen crowding the old heroic pictures of
sea fights. Why not? These boys are the sons of the
sons of men who fought at Trafalgar. They are of the
brood that guards the rickety, white-faced, slouching mil-
lions of the slums from harm, and that leaves the rich man
to fill his belly in peace.
They can look after themselves, too, can the Greenwich
boys. There are no servants at the school. The boys
clean the whole place till it shines and sparkles, and wash
their own clothes, and make and mend them, and serve
their own food and wash up afterwards — and all this work
is done incidentally, the while they are getting a sound
education. They do more work before eight in the morning
than the Elementary School aristocrat does in a day.
Fourteen hours is their day, and when they enter the
Service it will be twenty-four.
Why are there not ten or twenty schools like Greenwich
School, the trust of the great Hospital foundation, dis-
tributed over England, Scotland and Ireland, for the Navy,
the Army, and the Mercantile Marine?
That morning, the drill -ship of Greenwich School was
flying Nelson's signal, and the boys were all drawn up to
attention beneath the flags, while the Captain, standing on
the terrace of the Queen's House, said something to them
concerning the great Admiral who came home from
THE ROYAL HOSPITAL AT GREENWICH. 23
Trafalgar to the Royal Hospital, and was borne through
the Water -Gate there below, a hundred years since.
The Vice -Admiral of the White came to his own men,
and the boys of Greenwich School are their sons, with
the same job to do again, one of these days.
24 LONDON PRIDE AND LONDON SHAME,
IV.— PORT OF LONDON.
" The ancient River singing as he goes
New -mailed in morning to the ancient Sea."
SEVEN hours down, five hours up. So runs the tide
through London town, year in and year out, for ever ;
flowing past stone wall and massive pier, muddy beach and
weed-grown wharf, mile after mile ; closed in by high,
gaunt warehouses, spanned by tier upon tier of proud
bridges, mile after mile. Overhead, the south-west wind
marshals cloud - legions, helmed like Alpine peaks and
robed in thunder, flying banners of radiant blue. . . .
Steady as she goes, or we shall hit the bridge. The yellow
water curls like a greedy lip upon the rounded bastion,
with a little snarling noise, and the wherry grazes the wet
stonework. Right ahead is a tug with a train of barges
as long as a Lord Mayor's Show, and much more inter-
esting. On the right is a great black flotilla of empty
lighters, moored and idle, because the trade of Port of
London is diminishing, let those in high places gloze the
matter as they may. To steer ashore is to risk colliding
with a derelict County Council landing-stage. The tide
swings the old boat impartially into these perils, and out
of them. Humour the tide, and she will help you. Cross
her, and she will drown you. The wind, checked by the
high buildings, swoops through where it can, and the
tanned sail gybes every few minutes, or is taken flat aback,
while the wash of the towing barges tosses the boat as
though she were in a seaway.
Below London Bridge, the steamships, haltered along-
side the warehouses in droves, are discharging or taking
in cargo with a whirring of cranes and a shouting. Now
PORT OF LONDON. 25
we are in the Pool, and the barges thicken, the men leaning
backward upon the long oars, and busy little tugs come
foaming up-stream, and the wherries glide in and out like
water -beetles, and every now and then a big ship comes
riding along, the exhaust cascading from her rusty sides,
her upper -works all stained and dim from the send of the
sea. The haggard wall of warehouse falls away, and there
is the dome of Paul's lifting its golden diadem upon the
bright and broken sky, an august patrician looking gravely
down upon the River, the great patient servant enslaved to
the plebeians.
Still down and down, past the ships of all the world,
black steamers and lavender - hued Norwegian three-
masters, red -sailed barges streaking down before the wind,
or reaching close-hauled, their lee-boards down alongside
like fins. Now are we beyond the London of polite
acquaintance, the London of hansom cabs and club, and
gilded places where you eat, theatres and drawing-rooms
and stuffy places where solemn people talk, and where other
solemn people say " How interesting ! " The air has a
shrewder savour, tinctured with the pungent waft of the
factories whose chimneys are flying plumes of smoke. You
are free of the river down here . You may tie up where you
will. You may ask what service you will, and get it, or
you give it without preface.
Of course, there are water-thieves as well as land -thieves,
as the late William Shakespeare observed, but they are
marked by the river-police ; the silent men pulling up and
down all day, passing you with an impassive scrutiny when
you least expect them. There are men, too, on the border-
line — as a grizzled workman told the writer in Limehousc,
" If you came to it, there wasn't anybody what was really
wliat you might term strictly honest, because they couldn't
afford it, Like ' —who go fishing in their broad -beamed
cherries, groping with long supple boat-hooks in the river
..i death for il gri ly ecrets. They buy old rope and
rusty odd, and ends from passing vessels, a trade thus
described by a bargeman : "Of course, they don't give
26 LONDON PRIDE AND LONDON SHAME.
you so much as what they gets when they sells it to marine
store dealers and such, not likely, but there they are, and
they throws a rope alongside, and if you catches it, why
you do, and if it misses, why, they don't do no trade, and
so it goes on, you see." I cannot profess to understand
exactly what he meant.
The old boat would have slopped her way down to
Gravesend with the twind and tide, but at a point where
Limehouse Church rises white upon a rain - cloud, she
stopped, and her sail came down, and she was pulled back
against the stream to a little beach overhung with tottering
old houses. Their wooden fronts, supported on piles, pro-
jected over the river, and a balustraded gallery ran, like
an admiral's stern -walk, beneath the ample bow -windows.
An accommodation-ladder led from the beach to the gal-
lery . At high tide the water washes within a few steps of the
top. There is a fleet of empty barges moored inshore.
You may tie up to one of them, and walk across them, and
climb down upon the beach, and up the accommodation-
ladder, and walk through the house into the street behind,
and no one questions— you are free of the river. This is
not London, but Port of London — a very different place.
The street is all warehouses, and there is very little doing.
Go where you will along the miles of the riverside, it is
ever the same. Why ? " Trade's bad." " Trade's getting
worse." "Ships don't come as they used." Why not?
"Don't know. All we know is, there ain't no money
about."
The street winding to Limehouse Church is narrow and
dirty and noisy and thronged with stout, slatternly women
and dim, languid men in torn blue jerseys, and little girls
fetching beer in jugs from the public -houses. (One has a
vague impression that there is a law concerning children
and public-houses. Laws are so useful when one is thirsty,
are they not ?) The children crowd the footways of the main
thoroughfare, and press about the windows of the tawdry
sweet-shops, and the desolate, drab streets opening to right
and left are empty, save for the children. Some there are
PORT OF^ LONDON. 27
clean - pinafored and neat, but nearly all are wan and
pinched. The most are huddled into discoloured rags, and
are bare-headed and bare -footed. Here is a small boy
who is attired in the remnants of his father's wardrobe.
He wears some sort of mutilated vest, and part of a waist-
coat, and trousers frayed in fringes above the knee, and
lacking a seat entirely, and that is all. Here is a small
red - haired girl, swathed in a collection of nondescript
female garments, generally pink, and insecurely fastened
by casual pins. So they drift about the miserable streets,
this little brood of dock-rats, and into Limehouse Church-
yard.
The London County Council has thoughtfully removed
the gravestones, and piled them neatly along the wall, in a
kind of lapidary museum — which must be very gratifying
to the descendants of those who erected these memorials —
and has planed the mounds into a trim garden. The sound
and strife of the streets go up beyond this quiet place, and
tired men and factory girls eat their lunch out of paper
parcels, sitting on benches beneath the trees. A thick ring
of purple irises borders the gravel, and the great stone
church casts its shadow on the ragged children playing on
the steps. This is Port of London, behind the river wall.
The tide has turned, and the wind, meeting the stream,
buffets it into waves. The old boat can never make her
way against the gale, which perpetually blows her athwart
the current. Nor can the barges. The ubiquitous little
tugs are plying up the river, collecting a barge from this
wharf and that, dropping one here and another there, and
forging ahead with the rest. Towing in the wake of such
a procession, the old boat makes sudden darts and lunges
at the barge's scarlet and blue-painted quarter, and bumps
her nose on the iron rubbing-strake.
The bargeman, pipe in mouth, leans upon the flat tiller,
and keeps a bright dark eye, narrow -lidded like a hawk's,
upon tin- river ahead. His gaze travels over the mounded
tarpaulin of hi^ own laden boat, and over the barge n< \t
ahead, piled with yellow timber. In the stern -sheets,
28 LONDON PRIDE AND LONDON SHAME.
beside the steersman, are a woman and a couple of children.
Towing abreast is another barge laden with bales of paper,
in whose shelter a stout, bearded man sits placid as an idol.
" What, George? " says my bargeman, genially. -' Glad
to see you looking so well, George."
"Ah," says George. H Never go and look for trouble.
That's my motto. It keeps me in health. But what did
the old man say this morning? ' George,' he says, ' take
and row her up on the tide.' What do you think of that?
' Tide? ' I says. ' Where is it ? I sees the wind,' I says,
' I grant you that, but I don't see no tide. No rowing for
me,' I says. ' We'll have a tug.' And here we are. What
do you think of that? "
" He means," explained my bargeman, in a courteous
aside, " that his master wanted him to hurry away and row
up, and he couldn't, so he didn't."
The Pool was clearing of craft, and the tug, curving,
swung her barges after her, right across the river, as a
lady swings her train. A vast Noah's Ark of an empty
lighter, towing alongside, cast loose exactly at the right
moment, and drifted neatly up between two lines of moored
barges to her berth, while the tug turned and steamed up
river again, right in the eye of the sinking sun. The red
light struck full on the weather -browned face of my barge-
man, and the bridges and towering buildings loomed black
upon the vivid sky. " We tows at our own risk," said my
bargeman. " The tug, she won't take no risk, not she.
Forty -one years have I been on this river, and never had
an accident but one. Two years ago that was — just two
year ago. There 'd been a fog on the water, you see, and
it was just clearing, and all the ships was in a tearing hurry
to get away. A big steamer run us down in mid -stream —
knocked a hole in the bows. We was laden with malt, all
covered up with tarpaulin, like as you see it now, so the
water only soaked in gradual. She took an hour to sink,
and by that time the watermen had helped us to get her into
shallow water. The steamship company wouldn't pay.
They fought. They always fight sooner nor pay. There
PORT OF LONDON. 29
was a big case at one of they High Courts of Justice.
There was me and my two sons against the captain and
the first mate, and the second mate and all of them — seven-
teen altogether — the 'ole ship's company. And three
counsels on each side. I told the truth, and we won. Tell
the truth, I say, and nobody can't shake you. You're safe.
The other way, you aren't never safe. It takes too much
cleverness, that's where it is."
We were gliding past the Tower, within whose grey
walls, now fringed with spring verdure, men and women
have pined and died for the sake of both principles.
Thence, beneath the shadow of Westminster, within whose
fretted walls there is " too much cleverness," and too —
" Get aboard, now, and we'll cast off."
The old boat slipped her head -line, and the barges slid
away, and diminished to a blot upon the bright water, and
were lost to view. They were going up to Wandsworth
on the tide, and, having discharged their cargo, would
come down on the next, whether by day or night. Night
and day, year in and year out, these sturdy carriers of Port
of London ply up and down the flood that wells out of the
heart of the green country, flowing from flowery margents,
where the cattle stand to drink knee -deep in the reeds,
past stone wall and mossy pier, muddy beach and weed-
grown wharf, mile after mile. Spanned by tier after tier
of proud bridges, closed in by high, gaunt warehouses, mile
after mile, the River bears the ships of all the world and
their servants the barges in and out of Port of London,
and wins to where all roads by land or water end at last,
the sea.
3o LONDON PRIDE AND LONDON SHAME.
THE TREASURE-CITY.
" The lofty buildings of this place
For many years have lasted
With nutmegs, pepper, cloves, and mace,
The walls are there rough -casted.
In curious hasty -puddings boiled,
And most ingenious carving ;
Likewise they are with pancakes tiled,
Sure, here's no fear of starving."
Buried in the core of the City of London, secluded, un-
remarked, approached through a modest gateway opening
from a muddy, crowded footway, there stands a square pile
of buildings, vast as a mediaeval castle. In the courtyards
great vans and wagons are waiting, looking small, like
toys, beneath the sombre cliffs of brickwork. A tier of
black openings, rising one above the other, pierce the wall ;
little figures of men stand on the verge, receiving huge
bales and boxes swung to them in mid -air, and thrusting
them within. So it was when the old East India Company
founded their gigantic warehouses to store the wealth of
all the East, more than a hundred years ago ; so it is to-
day, now that the Dock Company holds them, and the mer-
chandise of all the world is lodged in those strong walls.
In a dusky chamber, so wide that its ceilings, supported
on stout colonnades and carved consoles, weighs upon the
head, are piled carpets three and four feet high, laid in
separate heaps, like a divan of kings ; room after room the
same, with a glimmer of rich hues and a gleam of costly
silk, all the stuffs of Araby, fabrics from a thousand looms,
spoils of palace and of mosque. Sedate men unroll them
silently, and replace them, and melt into the shadows, their
noiseless footsteps following the myriad footsteps of the
dead generations, which passed upon the faded arabesques.
. . . Look, this carpet is worth a thousand pounds to-day.
Up the stone stairs, attended by the sedate men who are
the constant custodians of incalculable riches, to the top,
where, ranged beneath skylights, along the immense floors,
are the feathers and plumage and bright skins of birds.
PORT OF LONDON. 31
In one case alone are ostrich feathers, orderly laid,
enough to furnish forth all Regent Street ; in another the
massed sheen of Himalayan pheasants ; in another the
delicate metallic sparkle of humming-birds, inexpressibly
vivid. The sedate custodian, holding the feathered skins
so that the light takes them, bends over the small boy who
is of the party, and who gazes and sets a hesitating linger
on the glitter, and is pale and interested and silent. So,
room after room, along the summit of the gigantic build-
ing. It is very quiet here ; the hum of the city is stilled,
and the air blows freshly from the unseen river flowing
near at hand.
And yet here is but a tithe of the wealth of Golconda,
stored in one warehouse out of a town — a city — of ware-
houses.
Another storehouse, built about the still water of the
docks, where ships heave high their prows beside the wharf,
and a snowy flowing figurehead of a woman with clasped
hands, slides into the dark shed. Here is a great room
paved with elephant's tusks, piled and heaped with ivory.
And where are all the elephants, an army huger than
Hannibal's? Here are barrels of ivory fragments, re-
turned by American artificers to be worked in this country ;
casks of whales' teeth ; and the tusks of extinct mastodons,
quarried in Siberia. Here are rooms stuffed with spices,
cassia, and cloves and cinnamon ; rooms stored with iron
bottles of quicksilver ; rooms rilled with all the ware of
all the earth.
Here, on the ground floor are bales of wool from
Australia, acres of bales of wool. Below, stored in cata-
combs, is the raw indiarubber in sections, hard and wet
and acrid smelling, and in knobs as they come from the
trees, like roots.
Returning to a brief vision of daylight, a vision com-
mingled of warehouse, shed, barrels, ships, masts, still
water, swing bridges, more oily water, barges, sedate cus-
todians, stevedores, the explorers descend certain steps
newly spread with sawdust, into an illimitable darkness,
shot with tiny lamps vanishing into the unknown beneath
32 LONDON PRIDE AND LONDON SHAME.
dim arches. A solemn custodian presents each person with
a tiny lamp flaring at the end of a long handle of polished
wood. Footsteps fall noiselessly upon the deep sawdust
of the road ; on either side loom rows upon rows of wine
casks ; overhead, the fungus crawls upon the vaulting ;
and from out the gloom comes the wailing of cats. Miles
upon miles of cats and fungus, populated by the cats that
eat the rats— the wine cellar of London.
A majestic person, ringed with smoky lights and atten-
tive faces, stands pontifical beside a noble cask. He takes
an ell -long tube of glass, and plunges it through the hole
in the roof of the cask, and the wine rises rose -red. He
holds the vial, dripping wine, over a wine-glass, and the
fifty-year -old port, passing from hand to hand, glows and
twinkles, deep-hued like a sunset, fragrant like flowers.
In this crypt of the wine -god — buried out of sight and
sound, all London, roaring overhead in the garish day-
light and the mud, fallen wholly out of mind — we drink in
silence, each to his own divinity, and the cats wail out of
the dark .
Steaming down the river, past red -sailed barges coming
up with the tide, and cargo -boats outward bound, and black
islands of moored barges, and masted ships at anchor, the
rampart of London town goes by, mile after mile. Mile
after mile of warehouse and wharf and factory, dock and
factory and mill and warehouse, the stately palace of
Greenwich Hospital, the great dark buildings of Woolwich,
the old, bow -windowed taverns tottering on piles — the
whole procession of the mart of the world goes by.
The scrolled quarter of an ocean-going steamer rises
high above the lock-gates, and the funnels of a P. and O.
liner rise near by. The gates, opening, disclose a space
of shining water and the tall tower of red canvas, cut off
aslant at the top, of a sailing barge in the eye of the sun.
As the space broadens the ranks of great ships on either
hand are lost in the golden haze. Near at hand a barge,
gaudy red and green, swings upon the oar, a woman and
two fair-haired girls sitting alongside the sturdy oarsman,
while a retriever barks conversationally in the bows.
PORT OF LONDON. 33
Those tin roofs cover some thousands of frozen car-
cases of sheep. In the yellow half-light behold them piled
orderly in cubes, stiff ears projecting, the ribs ringing hard
as wood to the blow of a stick, and it is very cold. . . .
The autumn sunlight without is hot as the breath of the
Tropics.
Near by is a plain building, which holds all the tobacco
that comes to London. All the tobacco that comes to
London, behind a common brick wall ! All the tobacco
. . . well, there it is.
Cargo -boat and liner and masted ship and barge and
wherry shed and warehouse and mill and a piece of grass
and a flagstaff, and shed and warehouse and swing-bridge,
and the gold -laced burly figure of the superintendenty
and grizzled blue -clad men, all wrapt in the profound and
holy calm induced by enormous possessions — so, for three
miles of dock, and so out again into the troubled river
eddying to the sea, and the towers and buildings darkening
in the golden haze. . . .
And still this is only a fraction of the whole.
Released from the spell of that stupendous hoard, such
as Solomon the Great never knew, such as Haroun-al-
Raschid never dreamed of, nor could the treasure of the
Incas buy it, fancy still wanders amid those endless high-
piled silent chambers ; and still beholds a figure going
before, that turns and beckons. It is the figure of an old,
bent seaman. Beneath a mane of snowy hair, his eyes look
forth, intent and lustrous like an eagle's eyes, as he flits
into the shadow. His likeness hangs in the Painted Hall
at Greenwich, pictured by Thornhill, and his dark face
and wild elf-locks start from out the crowded allegory of
the frescoed ceiling— the portrait of the old Pensioner.
For he and his fellows, the men .of the sea, generation
after generation, far back among the centuries, brought
the laden ships to England, and still bring them, going
to and fro on all seas, piling high the pyramid of wealth, of
which their share was, and is, the bare wages of heroic toil.
L.P.L.S. D
34 LONDON PRIDE AND LONDON SHAME.
V.— WASTE.
" They say they scorn to tell you lies,
That they are not mistaken ;
But the streets are paved with pudding -pies,
Nay, powdered beef and bacon."
" It isn't doing the work, it's walking about to get it,"
said the stevedore. "Look at this here dock. Water
empty, sheds empty, steamers rottin', grass a-growin' along
the wharf."
He stood with shoulders slightly bowed, arms hanging
loosely at his sides, head bent forward, and a look in his
grey eyes like the look of a dog searching for his master.
On the left was a long row of storage sheds, empty, as he
said, the paint scaling off them ; on the right were two big
cargo -boats, laid up for lack of business ; in front, the
expanse of still water reflected the grey clouds. Beyond
the lock gates was the airy, mocking freedom of the broad
river and the open sky. Across the caisson moved a pro-
cession of some twenty men pushing trucks, and save for
these the great dock was wholly deserted.
■"■ I remember the time," said the stevedore, " when the
water was that crowded the ships couldn't hardly move.
It was the big strike that began the trouble, twenty years,
ago. I was in that. Australia sent £30,000 to us. But
there are too many men, you see — too many men. The
outsiders got in and stayed — studied the business, like, and
got the billets — and it wasn't likely the strikers would be
put back. Then the trade went from the port, of course,
and it ain't never come back. Why should it? There
ain't the facilities here what they get in Antwerp and them
foreign ports, not to mention Liverpool and Southampton.
WASTE. 3 5
And the ships is getting so big, I've seen 'em stick in the
gates, and have to be hauled off by tugs, and taken out
into the stream. No. It pays the ships better to
go abroad. . . . We'll go out the back way. There's
no more to see. The place is empty, as you see."
On the way out we met one apprentice and a cat. But
outside the side entrance were near a hundred sturdy men,
leaning against the wall or lying on the pavement asleep.
They were waiting for a ship to come in. It is the occupa-
tion of their lives.
" Of course," said the stevedore, " there's men among
them who work till they've earned a shilling and then
throw it up. They makes it bad for the rest, for they gets
in first, and the others is kept idle for the day. It's this
why. Early in the morning, afore the gates open, hun-
dreds collect outside, every morning just the same, fighting
to be first, for it's first come, first served, climbing over
one another's backs. Look here." He pulled out the
torn side -pocket of his jacket. " They uses that as a
stirrup, and walks on your head. You wouldn't believe the
sight. And every morning. Of course, these ain't the
regular staff. The dock companies keep a regular staff,
and drafts them from one port to another, according as the
work is, you understand. Then if there's extra to be done
they takes men from outside. If the foreman knows your
name it's an advantage, for he picks you — if you can fight
your way in, that is."
We were walking along the curious, winding, shadowy
streets behind the river wall, which wear an aspect inde-
finitely different from others . Here is a row of neat houses,
set behind flowering gardens, built in more prosperous
days, and now pressed upon by the slatternly, flat -faced
streets of abject poverty. Here a patch of low-browed
shops, and beyond rises a tall grey church. The place is
bare of traffic ; foot passengers are few ; only the children
drift about the pavements.
" Yes," the stevedore went on, in his level, colourless
tones, '-' it's not the doing of the work but the walking
D 2
36 LONDON PRIDE AND LONDON SHAME.
about to get it that does for a man. It fair takes it out of
him. I get up at five o'clock, say, and go to the wharf
where I've worked for years, so they know me, and if there's
a job I get the preference. It was regular once, so I took
and lived near by, in Wappi'ng. (They call Wapping.
rough, but give a dog a bad name and hang him, as they
say. It's quiet enough now. Not but what the seamen
coming ashore are treated shameful still. .You see them
big sheeny-men with spectacles come down when a ship's
come in, and persuades the men to come along to their
shops and buy a suit of clothes for three pounds what
ain't worth three -and -six.) Well, as I was saying, if I'm
early at the wharf, and there ain't no job, that leaves me
time to walk around to the docks. And it's a long walk
between them. Walk 1 You should see the men a -walk-
ing, London Docks to London and West Indies, and on
to JMillwall. Miles and miles they walk, every morning."
He looked down at his boots. The soles were worn thin'
as paper, and the leathers were broken. " Well, say I don't
get nothing at the wharf — and the wharfinger has put it
up for sale and no buyers — I walk to London and West
Indies. Then there's the fighting and climbing over one
another's backs, and trouble, as I was saying. 'Nothing
doing. I goes home again and reports to my wife, Nothing
yet. Then I walks round again, and perhaps comes in again
about eleven o'clock to report. For my missis, d'ye see,
she thinks if I don't come in I've got a bit of work, and
there'll be some money in the evening. Then, out again,
stand here for a bit, then take a stroll to pass away the
time, then stand there, and so on, till you're so tired you
couldn't hardly do a job of work if you got it.' 1
" How do you live ? "
" Well," said the stevedore, " it's a fair masterpiece how
some on us do contrive to live, it is that. I got two days'
work last week, that was at four and sevenpence halfpenny
the day, counting fourpence halfpenny they takes off for
the dinner -hour, you understand. I don't grumble at the
pay. Why, if it was only regular I could do with less, and
WASTE. 37
not grumble. I should know where I was . It's cruel, the
way it is. But we gets along, and my wife she takes in a
bit of washing, and we agrees very well."
" Why don't you go to Canada? "
" Ah," said the stevedore, deliberately, " I do believe
a man could do something out there if he chose to work.
If I was alone — but I've got a wife and two children.''
" Emigration societies — "
He shook his head. " My wife wouldn't go. She's
a riverside girl, you see."
That was it. Once riverside, always riverside, especi-
ally among the women.
" Not but what if we got a free passage, and had some-
thing certain at the other end, I believe she'd go, I do,
indeed," said the stevedore. " But, Lord ! No one never
does anything of that sort."
The tram glided along the broad main thoroughfare,
among the heavy goods from the docks, laboriously carted
along miles of road, between the wide pavements thronged
with loafing men and bare-headed women, and ever the
drifting children. . . .
" You see," said the stevedore, " when you have children
you have to be careful — very careful. It's all for them
and nothing for yourself. Sometimes there's enough to
spare for a bit of tobacco." He took a pinch of bird'seye
from a metal box, and rolled a thin cigarette, and began to
smoke, his sad, set gaze fixed upon vacancy.
38 LONDON PRIDE AND LONDON SHAME.
VI.— THE COMMONS.
" Let your light so shine before men that they may see your
good works
Sir Charles Barry's noble Palace of Westminster
fronts on one side the changeless, immemorial River ; and
on the other the rush of traffic that turns aside and huddles
past the Abbey towers ; and so the Palace, islanded be-
tween the tides of water and of life, stands a little apart,
wrapped in a splendid and an austere dignity. Long wall
and high tower and fretted pinnacle cast their shadow
broad upon the stream, where the silent barges go floating
by ; and high uplifted into quiet air, the carved work
takes the sunlight, half veiled in shining mist. The river
goes upon its appointed errand down to the sea, and returns
again ; and the boats ply to and fro with the tide, as they
did from the beginning, ere the Palace was conceived in
the brain of the architect, and as they will when its wrought
stones are dust.
Out of sight and sound of the noiseless River, the
generations flit and fade in heat and turmoil, ever perishing
and ever renewed, eddying in and out the painted chambers
of the Palace, changing and dissolving even as you look.
At nightfall, the River goes lighted along its way like
a monarch who makes his royal progress through his city,
between the lined thousands of his guards, each, himself
invisible, poising a ball of flame and holding upright a
lance of tremulous fire. His sombre mantle is sown with
dim stars, and arabesqued with the dark forms of ships ;
and so he marches night by night, to meet his bride the sea.
And the Palace, darkling upon the vast obscurity of the
THE COMMONS. 39
heavens, glows in every foliated window with excess of
light ; and on its topmost towers shines a beacon ; high
sign and symbol that the wise men of the nation, who are
taking counsel together within, resolute for the common
good, are hiding not their light under a bushel, or any
such thing. . . .
Let us enter, and behold that light so shining ; now,
in mid -afternoon, when the Commons assemble.
The House of Commons is best seen from above — from
either the Press Gallery or the Strangers' Gallery. Thence
you survey the rows of tired members, packed along the
green benches on the floor of the lofty brown chamber ;
other tired members entering from the lobby and standing,
legs wide apart, for a few pensive moments, and then re-
tiring ; other tired members walking up the matted path-
way, and bowing to the Speaker, and collapsing upon a
green bench ; the bewigged clerks at the table, Mr.
Speaker, austere beneath his carven canopy, the great gold
mace, and the torn scraps of paper littered everywhere.
Behold, ranged on the Front Bench, a row of solid,
opulent gentlemen, who, by virtue of indomitable tenacity,
perpetual manoeuvring, a pleasing style of address, charm-
ing manners, and what is called influence, have won their
way to the seats of the mighty. For a few brief years,
they cling to the crags of Olympus, and wonder what in
the world is happening down below, and especially how
long it will be before they fall off. They borrow one
another's matches to kindle their little lights withal, that
they may so shine before men. Then the ex-Olympians
try to blow them out. If they can blow them all out at
once, they have won the game, and become kings of the
castle in their turn. The game is called Democratic
Government, its origin is of great antiquity. Its peculiar
charm is that they are the spectators who pay all expenses,
and suffer all the penalties. Why not? They like it. If
they did not like it, they would end it.
There they sit, the Prime Minister, the Chancellor of
the Exchequer, the Postmaster-General, the Secretary for
40 LONDON PRIDE AND LONDON SHAME.
Ireland, the President of the Board of 'Trade, the First
Lord of the Admiralty — a random selection from the round
score of the heads of vast and intricate departments of
State whose business they are not even expected to under-
stand. Opposite to them, sit the ex -heads of the said de-
partments, whose duty it is to criticise the conduct of the
departments whose business, when they had charge of it,
they did not understand.
These are the picked team. The rest, with one or two
inconsiderable exceptions, do what they are told, which is
chiefly nothing. To the eye of the casual spectator, the
packed benches represent the liberties of England,
assembled for free and open debate. Nothing of the sort.
Some few, beside the leaders, may get a chance once in
three months or so, to address empty benches. The rest
of the time, save for intermittent visits to the division
lobbies, is their own. But what (you ask) of the Labour
members, those sturdy champions of the Oppressed ?
Nothing. They sit in a round-shouldered, apathetic group,
ranged below the Irish on the Opposition side, because
they have a nebulous idea that they ought to oppose the
Government. There they sit, day after day. It is much
easier than working. When they are not there, they are
bickering among themselves outside. Once a Labour man
was given office, wherein, for the 'first time in his life,
he was able to be of some use. He was immediately
rejected of his fellows, who denounced him as a " traitor."
A coloured shaft of sunlight strikes upon the bald head
of a Minister, who has risen to read an 1 answer to a question.
He is not aware that such and such events have occurred.
His information differs entirely from the information of
the honourable member. So far from the Government
being in any way to blame, it is the best of all possible
Governments — at any rate, it is indescribably better than
the last. Yes. Quite so. He sits down. Someone
opposite rises to ask a supplementary question — " Arising
out of that answer, Mr. Speaker, may I " ask the right
honourable gentleman another damaging question, which,
THE COMMONS. 41
you might suppose, would floor him. Not at all. He
knows nothing about it, or he asks for notice, or his hon.
friend is again misinformed. You might suppose, again,
that, upon a material question of assertions, which, if true,
ought to blast the Government for ever, or which, if false,
ought utterly to shame the questioner, some conclusion
would be reached. Not at all. You do not know your
House of Commons. Nothing happens — nothing at all.
If the discussion seems in danger of touching finality, the
Speaker intervenes. There are a great many more ques-
tions on the list, and you rnust give the other fellows a
chance, says Mr. Speaker. Such are the rules of the game.
It is the same in debate. The course of the game is
arranged beforehand between the Whips on either side,
and the players are duly stationed.
Lo, the Prime Minister rises, the image of stiff-necked
rectitude. He seems to be angry. Why? He is not really
angry — that is only his pretty way. He thinks it well to
fortify his case, by implying a nobly suppressed indignation
aroused by the very apprehension that anyone — least of all
the gentlemen lounging opposite— should presume to differ
from him . He expounds his case with a sonorous, emphatic
delivery. It sounds a good case — a perfect case. " Yer-
yer-yer," growl the benches behind him. Then arises a
right honourable gentleman opposite, and leans an elbow
on the table, and presents the most damaging objections.
Seeing that his vocation in life is public speaking, he can
hardly be said to have mastered it. But he knows that the
row of vigilant reporters ravenously scribbling, in the
gallery, will correct his grammar and omit his repetitions ;
and after all, give him time enough — and there is plenty of
time — he can actually convey his real meaning, almost
always. He sits down, and talks to the statesman next
him, while someone on the Government side rises in
obedience to the Speaker, and stumbles through a jungle
of platitudes. Men are coming in and out all the time, and
there is a rustic along the benches, and an occasional " ycr-
yer," or a roll of " Oh — oh " from the Opposition. The
42 LONDON PRIDE AND LONDON SHAME.
orator sits down. He has done his duty for the next few
weeks. Then a Labour man gets up. He is at no loss for
words — especially long words. He keeps a little retinue
of them, which he enlisted when he used to declaim at
street -corners. Collectively, they mean nothing in par-
ticular. And so the hours wear away, men coming and
going, and the benches rustling, and the litter of paper
thickening, until it is time for dinner, and the members
troop out, and a novice gets his chance to speak to vacancy.
After dinner, they return, for the Leader of the Opposition
is to wind up the case against the Government, with that
inimitable skill which has been the admiration of so many
Parliaments .
He rises, serene, urbane, commanding. He is fluent,
easy, lucid, witty. He has stored in that nimble brain of
his, all the fallacies of his opponents, one by one, during 1
the weary weary hours of talk, and labelled them, each with
its appropriate comment, gibe, or refutation. Now he
strings them all together and reels them off with the glit-
tering dexterity of a juggler. With a final twist to the
string, the artist falls back in his seat ; his limbs relax ;
his gentle face gazes placidly upward. He knows exactly
what will be the Prime Minister's reply, before that majestic
person rises.
So does the Prime Minister, because it is not a reply at
all. No politician who is not a master of the side issue,
can hope to hold office. So he gently booms his virtuous
drum for seven minutes.
Upstairs in the Press gallery, the reporters are shovelling
their papers together, for the show is over. They crowd
out of the haggard, emptying Chamber, into the labyrinth
of rooms and passages which they inhabit.
"• That was a smart thing of Jones's," says one. " Must
have been an accident."
"■ O, the Opposition's no more good than a sick head-
ache," returns the political light of an Opposition journal.
He turns up his cuffs, and sits down to write : " The
leaders of the Opposition had last night good cause to
THE COMMONS. 43
congratulate themselves/' etc. ; while his Radical friend
at his elbow is inditing : — " The miserable vacillation of
the Opposition Front Bench was never more clearly dis-
played, in the face of Mr. Jones's magnificent vindication,"
etc.
And after a brief period of severe toil, they adjourn to
the bar, and drink together in amity.
The army of reporters, having duly chronicled the pro-
gress of the game, each in his manner, leaves the precincts,
bids the cheery policeman good-night, and disperses home-
wards .
The light on the topmost pinnacle is extinguished. But
it will burn again to-morrow.
44 LONDON PRIDE AND LONDON SHAME.
VII.— "THE PARK."
" And now you go on a journey. And I," said the Little Heiress,
" go to walk in the Park."
The smooth roadways are lined with green chairs, and
gentle and simple sit in rows all the golden afternoon, and
watch the quality go rolling past in their fine carriages.
Past they go, in two staid and shining streams, the strong
light flashing on varnish as the hither tide slides from sun
to shadow beneath the trees. The sky, very high and
stainless, radiates exuberant light ; the new foliage is
drenched with it ; the mounded blossoms glow like a fire ;
and the level greensward is carved in sharp -edged pat-
terns, lacquered with living colour or washed with pearl.
Amid the receding,; brilliant vistas move to and fro the
figures of ladies, hued like the flowers, upon such a scene
as Watteau might have painted . And all the while, gentle
and simple sit in rows upon green chairs, and watch the
quality go rolling past in their shining carriages, placidly
amused like folk at a theatre. For it is mid-afternoon
in the Park, at the full flush of the Season .
If you have a carriage, you put on fine raiment and
place a King Charles spaniel on the little seat with its back
to the horses, and then you drive in the Park, through the
sunlight and the shadow, beneath the trees, between the
flowers. If you have no such equipage, you pay a lei-
surely official a penny for a chair. If you have no penny,
you sit on a bench, which is more comfortable and less
select. You sit beside a man who has all to do with horses.
You can tell so much by a glance at his shrewd, grey eye,
and the peculiar twist of his clean-shaven visage. He tells
"THE PARK." 45
you he is enjoying a few days' rest before taking charge
of a hunting stable — which is a bit of all right. He con-
templates the glossy horses as they trot past, with a pro-
found and silent interest. He sees that the motor-car, as
a fashion, is waning in favour, and he is glad.
" The gentry," he says, meditatively, " don't care for
a thing as soon as it gets cheap. And horses — good horses
— are dear."
Are they? Stern moralist, with eyes asquint, what a
power of money there is in England I And how beautiful,
this golden afternoon, appears its expenditure I Doubtless
the pageant of the Park upon a June afternoon may be
rivalled among the capital cities of the nations, but never
outrivalled, if only by virtue of the English green of its
setting. A hundred yards away runs the pitiless, inter-
minable traffic of a main thoroughfare, whose tumult is here
subdued to a vibrant murmur. A hundred yards away the
sun beats on the harsh pavement, and life is a disagreeable
effort. But here, in this wide garden, are ease and sun-
light and a drowsy quietude. All is as it seems, for the
time ; and that (rightly considered) is the best of life.
The lines of carriages go by like waves of the sea, with
the horses' smooth and noble motion, the coachman and
footman seated like statues, and within the carriage ladies
robed like the summer. And all sorts of people go by
besides ; a family party in a hired landau, a girl on a bi-
cycle, an old gentleman ,in a victoria, shrunken into himself,
a famous barrister, hawk -faced, wearing last year's hat
(which wants brushing), a white-haired lady whose coach-
man and footman wear knee breeches and silk stockings,
a girl, very upright, driving a two-wheeled cart, with a
cockaded groom beside her, a couple of pale ladies in a
brougham . . . All polite London goes by, past the rows
of people on the green chairs, who admire them so sin-
cerely and so contentedly, while they hearken, as in a sunny
dream, to B strain of music faintly thrilling the languorous
air.
It falls and dies ; and in the pause the low roll of wheels
46 LONDON PRIDE AND LONDON SHAME.
seems a part of the silence. The people who pass by along
the footway awaken a vague interest. A hospital nurse
goes by, pale-faced, her eyes fixed on vacancy. A tall,
spare gentleman, tightly buttoned into a morning coat, tall-
hatted, gloved, umbrellaed, goes by. He walks stiffly, and
wears the bland expanse of forehead characterising the Per-
manent Official. An old, old gentleman in a bird's-eye
neckcloth wanders feebly beside a stout lady with a severe
countenance. A little clerk goes by, carrying a worn bag,
with an air of conscious rectitude. A young man of the
blue suit and brown boots type, goes by. Then goes by
a tall, lean gentleman, burned saddle colour, quick -eyed,
moving easily and lightly — no townsman he. A naval
officer goes by, nor does his suit of flannels disguise him.
A nursemaid leads a little tiny girl, who plays with her
shadow. A white-haired workman drops upon a bench,
folds his arms and is instantly asleep. So they all pass
from the daily routine into this place of sunshine and quiet
and green trees, where the quality go by in their fine car-
riages ; and all are enmeshed for the time in the golden
spell ; and then they pass again to familiar, work-worn
things, and thence, each in his turn — whither?
The music steals again upon the air ; and if you cross
the road between the carriages and pass the rows of green
chairs — and three Hebrew ladies in silk and lace (a little
soiled) — and a space of lawn where a fountain sparkles,
and a mower whets his scythe ; you shall come into the
shade of the avenue, and behold the riders flit among the
trees, and the dark bandstand rising near by, crowned with
the red tunics of the musicians, and more rows of green
chairs, where the people sit and talk in low tones, and eye
one another askance, after the manner of the English. The
music weaves a shining web about their lazy senses, and;
time is not. ;So many disparate lives are gathered into
the web, subdued to the enchantment of the sunlight and
the flowers ; and the delicate melody is the prelude to
none knows what, and the most do not care at all — and
why should they? Carriages are drawn up alongside the
"THE PARK." 47.
footway, and the footmen stand beside the horses' heads.
At the end of the row is a light, two -seated cart, spick and
span. A girl with level eyebrows sits in the driver's place,
slightly raised above the neat young gentleman, her com-
panion. They are talking pleasantly together, and the
music hides their voices.
Then the music stops. Upon the line of waiting car-
riages, and the serried rows of people, a silence falls, a
silence as of expectation. The impassive faces give no
sign. They are waiting, as we all wait, upon expectation ;
but in this shadowed place and casual pause, to which they
were drawn together as by accident, they are all uncon-
scious of the fanciful significance of the moment. All un-
awares they play their part, and compose a picture they
cannot see. . . .
Only the girl in the cart, gazing down the sunbright
vista, seemed alert and listening. The youth beside her,
his face turned a little upwards and towards her, seemed
to be waiting also. Then she turned to him, and looked
kindly upon him, and said something, and the faces of
both were changed. . . .
Then the music broke forth again.
48 LONDON PRIDE AND LONDON SHAME.
VIII.— BANK HOLIDAY.
" We are the folk that a -summering wenti
Who while the year was young were bent —
Yea, bent on doing this self -same thing.
Which we have done unto some extent.
This is the end of our summering"
High above the booths little figures swung giddily up
and down in the haze of dust, like a row of frantic pendu-
lums. In the midst of the fair rose a circular tower,
wreathed about with the appearance of a stairway. Nearer
hand, the expanse of rough grass and sand is dotted over
with seated groups and littered with scraps of paper. Be-
yond, a troubled: sky arches down upon the thickened cloud,
pierced here and there by spire and chimney -shaft, which
broods over London. The fitful southerly wind brings a
throbbing, brazen clamour of distant music. This is Wan-
stead Fair, on Wanstead Flats, and to-day is Bank Holiday.
Several millions of people in London Town would be at
a stand to know where are Wanstead Flats . They are near
by the River Lea and Leytonstone in Essex, and you get
there by diving into the City, emerging at Liverpool
Street or Fenchurch Street and taking a train which glides
across the roofs of many miles of packed houses, in which
the people live like mites in a cheese. Over backyards,
and past huge factories and stagnant canals and tumbled
deserts of waste ground out along the draggled fringes of
the skirts of Mother London till the green begins to show,
and the houses to fall away, and* there is a waft of the,
country. All the trains are gliding out crammed with
people soberly happy, because they are out for the day.
They bring their children washed and neat, they bring
BANK HOLIDAY. 49
baskets, they bring paper bags, they bring, above all, a
simple joy which is a treasure inestimable.
Behold them in the Fair, something scorched by the
unwonted sun, dusty, sauntering, placidly staring. iThey
are densely pressed against the platform of the theatre.
Its front is a bewildering blaze of gilding and barbaric
scrollwork, in whose centre the pipes of a steam-driven
organ are roaring, and drums are beating like live things,
and trumpets are screaming. Upon the platform three or
four girls, rouged and bedizened, are dancing to the music,
while a couple of grotesque figures are playing the fool.
At the side a portly, pleasant -faced gentleman in a grey
frock-coat, continually jangles upon a large bell. This
is not the entertainment, though it looks like it. The real
show is within. The performers on the proscenium are
merely there to excite interest. The idea is subtle. If
what we give you for nothing be so attractive what must
it be like inside ! Admission twopence, to the high-class
family entertainment, children half - price. Children !
There were children in droves, in heaps, from the raga-
muffin to the superior infant in a clean pinafore. They
thronged up the steps, all among the legs of their elders ;
and we all paid our pennies to a stout lady with a wooden
countenance, and dived into a stifling darkness.
There we stood on the sand and waited, and tried to
hope that the steam -organ would some day stop, and stared
at the square of white curtain, until the National Anthem
began to play. Performed on a steam-organ it ranks with
any other tune, and is not regarded as patriotic. It ended ;
a white light shone from the back, and the celebrated cine-
matograph entertainment began. The muse was Ameri-
can. There was no mistake at all as to the relations exist-
ing between the gentleman in the silk hat and the lady in
the summer frock, who were rambling (at about fifteen
miles an hour) in the forest. They came upon a gipsy
encampment, they crossed the gipsy's hand, she took them,
with the swiftness of lightning, into her tent. Silent ex-
plosions of smoke — inexpressible consternation of the silk
L.P.L.S. E
50 LONDON PRIDE AND LONDON SHAME.
hat, as his extremely undesirable past appears in the back-
ground. There is another lady. He affects unconcern.
The summer frock trusts him still. The gipsy bursts into
a passion of silent mockery. Away ! 'Tis the marriage
morn ; venerable parent giving his daughter away. Enter
another lady, an infant in her arms. Fainting, confusion,
horror — silk hat led away (at twenty miles an hour) by two
policemen in German caps. Dear me. Audience silent,
impressed, and perspiring.
In the next arrangement, the daughter of a dying stone -
breaker takes to the high-toby in sheer desperation ; and,
disguised as a cowboy, she holds up a stage coach. She
is hunted down by the sheriff and his bronco boys, tried
and condemned in five seconds, led out to be hanged, and
the rope is over the branch in five more. Then her hair
comes down, and — the rest, of course, you know. It
is the sheriff himself who hands round the hat (a tall
hat, his own) for the dying stonebreaker and his gallant
lass.
Outside the sunlight dazzles. All among the vans, at
the back of the theatre, a lady is placidly washing greens
for tea. The open door reveals the corner of a locker,
covered with a chintz mattress, and a chest of drawers
laden with china ornaments, and a bird in a cage. jNear
by two terrific roundabouts are whirling to the crash of the
steam -organ. On the one men and girls and children are
careering, with a horrible pitching motion, upon the backs
of gilded ostriches. On the other, with a refinement of
torture, they are plunging in little cars down and up a steep
ascent, and going round in a wheel at the same time. These
devilish machines are thronged all day long. Now, too,
the design of the tower with the outside staircase becomes
evident. It is not a) staircase, but a slide. You enter at
the top, sit on a sort of toboggan, and plunge madly round
and round to the bottom. This also is crowded. 'No
sooner does one set of dishevelled victims totter forth than
another rushes in. And all the while the swings are tossing
high in the haze of dust, and men are knocking down cocoa-
BANK HOLIDAY. 51
nuts, and shooting at rows of clay pipes, and boys and
girls fling confetti at one another, and policemen edge vigi-
lantly in and out of the press.
Here are hundreds of factory girls, all much of a size,
all burned by the sun, and all wearing their hair curled
upon the forehead ; loud, good-natured, simple girls, keep-
ing together in twos and threes. Here are a few blue-
jackets, conspicuously broad and smart, and a sprinkling
of scarlet tunics. • ,But most of the populace is made up
of families — father, mother and children. In a wide cir-
cumference outside the fair they sit on the ground in
groups, and eat out of paper bags, and are completely
happy.
As for the showmen they toil and rest not. They carry
an air of singular, tolerant detachment from the crowd
which they live by amusing. They are nomads all ; here
one day, fifty miles away the next, voyaging from fair to
fair all through broad England, and finishing the year with
the Goose Fair at Nottingham. They dwell in their vans,
and call no city their home. Their children sleep in per-
ambulators behind the canvas, wholly at peace in the midst
of the tumult. The more prosperous showmen own plant
worth thousands of pounds, employ troops of people, and
travel by train like lords or theatre people. The lesser
huddle canvas screens and properties in a cart or two, and
pad the hoof alongside the old grey horse and the family
van .
As the sun declines the noise waxes louder ; and
at nightfall it will be noisier still, and the naphtha lights
will be flaring, and couples will stroll beyond the tossing
radiance into the kindly dusk. But even now the families
are setting soberly homeward, beneath the heavy June
foliage that closes in the Flats, and along the sandy road.
So on foot, by omnibus and cart and train, back to the
great brick hive, whose cells are home. Beyond the vast
outer barrier of the teeming East, street and wall and fac-
tory, stagnant canal and tumbled desert of waste ground,
the westering sun fills with radiance the empty streets of
E 2
52 LONDON PRIDE AND LONDON SHAME.
the City. Channeled deep between the cliffs of carven
stone and blackened window, the asphalt roadways run
like lava, smooth and shining ; the approach of a solitary
hansom shatters the silence with a startling uproar ; and
the few passengers show conspicuous, like people in a
desert.
FLEET STREET.
IX.— FLEET STREET.
" There she is — the great engine — she never sleeps. She has
her ambassadors in every quarter of the world — her couriers upon
every road. Her officers march along with armies, and her envoys
walk into statesmen's cabinets."
IN the heart of London, a street called Fleet Street
descends from West to East, revealing, piece by piece, the
towering majesty of Paul's. .High -piled and dreaming
upon the troubled heavens, diademed with the golden
Cross, the great grey dome rests light as a bubble yet firm
as mortised marble upon its inter-columned pedestal ;
slashed upon by the delicate black spire rising near at
hand ; and across the mighty carven portals, nearer yet
is drawn the dark bar of the railway bridge, joining the
sinuous double rank of houses ; and between them slides
the train, whose white smoke ever volleys and melts away
above the roaring tide of traffic that floods the deep-
grooved roadway from wall to wall.
No nobler prospect kindles the heart in any city, yet it
is but the splendid mark upon a strange, vast, invisible
entity, in whose central ganglion Fleet Street is entwined.
Its nerves are quivering day and night,, year in and year
out. The tall buildings that close in the main street and
the tributary lanes and alleys, are throbbing with the hum
of imprisoned engines. Put your hand on the wall ; it is
faintly warm ; and you shall feel the pulse of the world
beating. Through deep-sea cables crawling in primaeval
ooze, along thousands of miles of telegraph wire, messages
are flashing across sea and desert and mountain, by way
of lone outposts, far settlements, and the turmoil of all
populous cities, into the brain of the metropolis. Here,
54 LONDON PRIDE AND LONDON SHAME.
they are gathered up and sorted out and translated and
redacted by armies of patient men with tired eyes. And
presently there is a newspaper.
Man the mysterious and mutable and yet ever the same,
peers out of Fleet Street windows with a hundred faces ;
faces grave and faces foolish, faces devout and faces farci-
cal, leering, sagacious, knowing, hysterical, demure, but
never melancholy — except by accident. For this is the
Street of all the World ; in which men's every avatar finds
a voice and an expression. So he appeals to his fellows,
wheresoever they are, and receives a copper coin. (The
price of silver is not found in Fleet Street.) The way and
means thereto is called The Office.
The doorway of the office is blocked by light carts bear-
ing the large legend of their newspaper, and besieged by
newsboys and messengers and porters : the roadway is
blocked by vans laden with gigantic cylinders of paper,
five miles to the roll, and by other vans bringing arsenals
of ink. In and out the doorway, up and down the stair,
all sorts and conditions of people are passing all day long
and nearly all the night. The man with a paragraph to
sell may rub shoulders with a Cabinet Minister, and the
inventor of a hygienic boot may wait (all unconscious)
in the same room as the leader of armies .
They are all possessed with the same craving. They
all want to see the Editor. They all believe, with a con-
viction rooted like an instinct, that each of them is offering
the Editor the chance of his life. Thus they are content to
wait and watch the hands of the pale-faced, implacable
clock on the wall, and to call again and again. They depart
more in sorrow than in anger — sorrow for the Editor, who
is missing the chance of his life, because like the god of
the heathen, he is gone hunting, or peradventure he sleeps.
The spectacle is not without pathos, because they do not
understand. Listlessly gazing at the newspaper on the
table of the waiting room, they are but dimly aware that
they are but poor asymptotes, infringing upon the orbit of a
whole solar system, whose inner sweep and tumult and
FLEET STREET. 55
inter-action is boiling all about them, unseen and un-
heard .
The system has its centre, calm amid the vortex like
the centre of a typhoon. Into that charmed circle, wafts
of the outer whirl come and go. Deep in the core of
things, approached by solemn corridors, is the room of
the Proprietor, whose frontier is guarded by a secretary
equipped with a miniature telephone exchange, and the
manners of a diplomatist. The Proprietor is so great a
man and yet so unostentatious, that many persons acquire
a small social reputation for knowing the world, because
they are accurately acquainted with his name. He is
greater than a Cabinet Minister, because he has his ringers
on the levers of the machine from which the Minister him-
self draws his power, and which the Minister fears, because
he cannot control it. It controls him. Moreover, Cabinets
come and Governments depart : an Amurath an Amuratn
succeeds ; but the Proprietor remains, with his fingers on
the keys. He sits in a quiet, airy room, deep -carpeted,
with fresh flowers on the table, and a silver cigar-box, and
presses buttons when he is so disposed. He is the Power
behind the Throne ; but he never boasts. He leaves that
luxury to Cabinet Ministers. He is the sedate and enthusi-
astic champion of causes, lost or found, and he will spend
arduous days — and even risk money — to gain them. . . .
I cannot take you into his room, because you have no
appointment.
In another centre of the whirl, the Editor sits behind
a vast table deep in papers and proofs, which also fill a
huge waste-basket and overflow upon the floor. This is
the man (pitied of the wandering 'stars in the waiting-
room) who every day has to make a new newspaper out of
his head and what God sends him. Every day, except
Saturday. He is the captain of the ship. He is respon-
sible for all. Hit is Clin! of the Staff. He is a statesman,
a politician, a critic, a man of letters, an organiser, and a
disciplinarian. He works the most of the day, and half
the night. All day long, and half the night, news is pour-
56 LONDON PRIDE AND LONDON SHAME.
ing in by letters and cable and wire from all over the world,
and the reporters are coming in and out with their versions
of what they have seen and heard, and books are tumbling
in from publishers, and the wandering stars are sending in
precious contributions, and men and women from all the
world are trying to see him. (I cannot take you into his
room, because you have no appointment.)
He sees the news, he sees the reporters' versions, he
scrutinises the books, he reads the contributions, and he
talks with a selected number of the wandering stars . Then
he goes home to dinner. And after dinner, he (luckless !)
must turn out, for the Event is approaching. The ship
must be steered into harbour— a hew harbour, every night,
and always uncharted. At ten o'clock or so he takes the
wheel. The leader writers are busy writing, writing, each
in his room, and as he .finishes, slip by slip, he presses a
button without looking up, and a boy takes the wet slip
to the composing rooms. In other rooms, the reporters
and the writers on particular subjects are writing, writing,
and pressing buttons. In a wide chamber, a company of
men sit beside green-shaded lamps, minutely investigating
sheaves of press telegrams written on slippery, transparent
paper, that come and still come. These are the sub-
editors, who comb out the tangled news for the printer.
The chief sub -editor sits quite buried in paper. The whole
mass of news is passed through him, and he begins to
arrange the nightly Chinese puzzle which is the fitting of
too much matter to too little space. Next door, is the
composing room, where busy men in shirt sleeves stand
at desks of type, or clatter on linotype machines . Near by,
is the foundry, where lean, sweating artisans are melting
metal in furnaces, ready for the casting. In the bowels of
the great building, the huge printing machines stand oily,
black and silent, waiting while the engineer studies his
switch -board. . . .
The Editor sits at his table serene and busy, steering
the ship. Men come and ask questions, and go, and come
again. Proofs thicken. The atmosphere is tense, like the
FLEET STREET. 57
atmosphere before a thunderstorm. There is a hurry
toward. The stir in the composing room thickens. Men
come in and measure spaces on the type, and declaim, and
swiftly discuss, and run out . Amid the turmoil, the Master-
Printer moves predominant and calm. He glances at the
clock. It is the Hour. For good or ill, the paper is com-
plete. He spreads his arms, and there falls a great and
sudden peace. The paper is put to bed. The ship is in
harbour. In that moment, all the labour and hurrv and
strife, are dead. The world glances at the result next day,
and throws it aside. It is dead, so soon as born. For this
is the Street of all the World ; in whose bazaars the people
care for nothing, but to hear or to see some new thing.
The Editor lets drop his blue pencil, and gets wearily
out of his chair. As he passes down the stair, there rises
from deep within the building the tremendous roar and
clatter of the machines, printing off.
58 LONDON PRIDE AND LONDON SHAME.
X.— FREE SPEECH.
' Be blovved ! ' we ses to 'em (just like that) and we likewise adds,
' Not me I '
And ' Wot do you think ? ' as a haf terthought, as plain as' plain
could be."
The holding of political meetings is part of that
romantic fiction, the British Constitution. These assem-
blies are called public, but that is merely an aspect of the
Great Democratic Joke. A public meeting is presum-
ably open to the public ; but the political meeting, as at
present usually arranged, is not. Admission is by ticket
only. You may, of course, apply for a ticket, and you
may get it. On the other hand, you may not. If you are
the sort of person who (however respectable) is notori-
ously in disagreement with the politics of the conveners
of this free and open assembly, the chances are that the
committee will inform you politely that the tickets are all
taken. Again, the holding of a public meeting presup-
poses an expression of public opinion. This is called
" free speech," and it is generally described as the pecu-
liar privilege of Britons. The privilege, of course, is not
supposed to include disorder and obstruction ; but there
is in this matter a certain undefined margin of licence. . . .
Most people accept the existence of the political meeting
as a matter of course. And yet, a little investigation of
its origin is not without profit. The political meeting
proper must here be distinguished from election gather-
ings, concerning which there is hardly even the pretence
of an illusion left. The origin of the assembly in question
is more recondite. The Government of the day bring in
a Bill, whose real object is carefully disguised, and whose
actual effects are studiously ignored. It is attacked by the
FREE SPEECH. 59
Opposition in the usual way. At this point Ministers be-
come aware of a kind of necessity urging them to go down
to their constituents and hold a meeting. Parliamentary
discussion, you see, does not suffice. The constituency
does not trust its Minister, and the Minister entertains dis-
agreeablesuspicions of the .constituency. So 1 down he goes
to talk them round. He is paid a handsome salary for
conducting the business of the country ; but that can wait ;
and, after employing the clerks in his office to arrange
statistics for him, down he goes.
Down he goes to address a free and an open public
meeting, carefully packed with his own adherents, ready
to declare at the top of his pipe that he stands for free
speech, surrounded by persons adorned with rosettes, called
" stewards," who are one and all spoiling for a fight, be-
cause some of the tickets, you see, may have gone to the
wrong people ^however respectable), in spite of all pre-
caution.
It is a sultry evening, the sunset reddening the stucco
house -fronts, the passengers dragging weary feet along the
frowsy streets. A crowd is concentrating about the side
door of the town hall, and forming into a queue. About
the door are not more than twenty policemen, under an
inspector. Ticket-holders are admitted one by one — those
without tickets are seized by the arm and turned right about
face — old men and young men, girls and women, they are
turned away like malefactors. Why? Our Minister is a
bold man ; but he is not taking any risks. It is of singular
importance — to him — that the meeting should be described
next day in the Press as enthusiastic and unanimous.
Again, there are the missionaries of women's suffrage to
be reckoned with.
A journalist comes to the door and presents a Press
ticket. But it is not the committee's ticket, and the police-
men elbow him amiably into the kennel. And, meanwhile,
the crowd thickens, and the ticket -holders are being passed
through the narrow door with the speed of a conjuring
trick.
60 LONDON PRIDE AND LONDON SHAME.
Within the big, garish hall the organ is pealing frivolous
tunes, like an elephant dancing the mazurka. The organist
sits below the platform, labouring at stop and pedal with
I -don't -care -what -I -play-so -long-as - 1 'm-paid expression,
until the sweat trickles down his bald forehead. On either
side of him sit the reporters, already beginning to write
of the meeting which has not begun. The hall is nearly
filled. The front row is occupied by solid burgesses and
their wives, glistening with inexplicable satisfaction. Here,
is a stout, bearded man in spectacles, wearing a perpetual
smile ; next him, a matron with a face like a horse ; then
a pair of comfortable old ladies, settled down for the even-
ing ; then an old, shrunken gentleman in black, grasping a
staff, and turning lack-lustre eyes on the empty platform ;
next him, a brother ancient, with a long chin -beard, and
a look as one who thrives on right brimstone doctrine.
Along the wall stands a row of weary, pallid men in cor-
duroys. All down the centre gangway, hovering in door-
ways, and sauntering outside in the corridors, are stewards,
decent looking men enough, and rather suggestive of a
Young Men's Christian Association — with exceptions. One
exception was a "huge gross man with pendulous cheeks
and a head like a doormat. He suggested the prize-ring.
I hasten to add that he took no part in the subsequent
fighting.
The platform began to fill. The first to arrive was a
gentleman in an Eton jacket and broad collar. His age
might have been anything from 15 to 40. The audience
clapped him, and he blushed. Then came a pair of black -
coated persons of some religious persuasion. Then came
the Church of England, tall and black, and extremely dig-
nified . Then a dozen or so of the portly people who always
ornament platforms .
The organist put his whole strength and intellect into
a last tremendous chord, and departed. A white-headed
chairman took his place behind the table, to great applause,
rising in volume as the Cabinet Minister entered and sat
down.
FREE SPEECH. 61
The chairman was the kind of estimable person who,
naturally incapable of independent thought, learns a series
of statements by heart, and delivers them one after the
other, like shooting stones on a roadway. He was suc-
ceeded by a frock -coated gentleman in a circular collar,
who was addicted to the corkscrew type of gesture, which
consists in writhing from the waist upwards at the begin-
ning of every sentence, as though his eloquence were stored
in his midriff. " This cur-rce," he said, " slays more
victims in a year than by repor-ert were " (writhe)/' slain
in the South African war-er." It does not matter what he
meant. To adopt an expressive figure, it was " hot-air."
Then arose an alderman, red and of a full habit, and
extremely important. He used the snatching gesture,
which resembles one who tries to catch flies. He told a
story which, he said, was an allegory, and the audience
believed him, because the story was wholly unintelligible.
He said that he would not explain it, because it explained
itself (here he was mistaken), and that " in view of the
Rich Treat " — he meant the Cabinet Minister, poor man
— they were all expecting, he would not detain them
(cheers). He would only add that " Boy Number Two
in the Allegory sat down to ponder on the mat." Presum-
ably he meant matter. He said mat. Here a baby in
the assembly became audibly unwell. Its sufferings were
lost in the applause which greeted the Rich Treat.
The Cabinet Minister arranged on a sloping desk the
typewritten document compiled by Government civil ser-
vants, and began. He talked with a fatal fluency, loudly,
and entirely without signification. It was hot air from a
megaphone. " His Majesty's Opposition did the best it was
incapable of," said the orator, and paused for the clappings
of approval. Now came the expected. I am particular
as to this point. There is some misconception concerning
similar occurrences. I will try to relate exactly what
happened.
As the clapping died away, there rose a thin, plaintive
voice, like a child's, from the body of the hall. It said
62 LONDON PRIDE AND LONDON SHAME.
perhaps six words, of which the word " women " was alone
distinguishable. Instantly half the audience rose from
their seats, and there was an uproar. The lady who had
spoken was silent. Some six stewards were hauling her
out of the hall, while the orator on the platform bellowed
to the people to look his way. " She's out," he said, and
went on where he left off. More megaphone, then another
interruption . A man had risen, and had put a simple ques-
tion. In a moment a dozen stewards were on him, he was
hauled, dragged, pushed, and beaten out of the hall, hurled
along the corridor by six men, two on each arm, two on
each leg, one pulling his hair, and another catching and
tearing as he could. Now up, now down, breathless,
strangling and torn, he was shot through the door and
thrown down the steps into the arms of friendly policemen.
Here the Cabinet Minister made a Boeotian and a quite
unpardonable reference to the incident. And the audience
laughed. They laughed. Kindly remark that circum-
stance. The orator went on in a kind of bellow, very
monotonous to hear. Then came another thin, plaintive
voice. Again the rush of stewards, the rising of the audi-
ence, which began to clamour, the ineffectual roar of the
Cabinet Minister, " Look this way ! Sit down ! " and then
he shouted, " Chuck her out ! " She was not chucked out,
but led out. The stewards had not yet forgotten the
decencies, though the Cabinet Minister had. He resumed
the monotonous bellow. The faces of the front row were
uplifted towards him with a fascinated, silly smile. He
was appealing to sentiment, rank, luscious, unashamed.
Then another man began a question, but before he could
finish it he was seized and hurled forth, neck and crop.
Then, after an interval, another lady said something, and all
the stewards lurking in the corridors made a rush to the
door nearest "her, like hounds after a rabbit . Another man
was dragged out, his heels slithering along the mosaic
pavement. By this time the stewards were fighting-fit,
and began to quarrel among themselves in the corridor.
The Cabinet Minister jibed at them, and jeered at the
FREE SPEECH. 63
women ; and when the front row obediently laughed, he
said ; " If you've come here for a grinning match, you'd
better go outside," and the smile was struck from their
faces, to be succeeded by a stony bewilderment.
Truly, they were better outside. As the ladies were
turned out — for ladies they were, and their dignity, as they
wore haled along by the representatives of the Young Men's
Christian Association and the rest, was not inconspicuous
— they were received with cheers by the crowd without.
Each in turn, these girls began to harangue the crowd, and
the policemen gathered among the audience. At the same
time, a roaring, strident Socialist mounted a box, and the
two voices intermingled. . . .
The writer desires to express no political opinion. He
is scrupulous to set down exactly what occurred — what is
occurring every day — in a " public meeting," organised by
politicians, and regulated by hired " stewards." Observe :
there was no question of disturbance. Those, whether men
or women, who interrupted the speaker, were not requested
to be quiet, or wait until he had concluded, or to leave
the hall. They were simply seized — in the case of the
man, badly mauled — and flung out, while the orator of the
evening permitted himself to use a licence for which he
would be caned in decent society.
But " free speech " is doubtless the peculiar privilege
of Britons.
64 LONDON PRIDE AND LONDON SHAME.
XI.— WOMAN'S SUFFRAGE.
" That thou art blam'd shall not be thy defect,
For slander's mark was ever yet the Fair."
PROLOGUE.— WHAT THE POLICEMAN SAID.
"I'M afraid," said the Policeman, " there'll be trouble
on Tuesday. It's the crowd, you see. Where there's a
big crowd, there's always a lot of roughs, you never know
what will happen. Do the best you may, some of the
women may get hurt . It's not their fault. No. People say
they oughtn't to use these methods — but what else can they
do, I ask you? I 'old that the rate -payers among the
women ought to have the vote. They pay rates and taxes,
same as the men — why shouldn't they be represented ?
Why, there's many a widow or a single woman living over
the ground floor of a man who gets his money dishonest,"
— I forbear to quote the policeman's exact description of
this ruffian's means of support — " and he has a vote and
she hasn't. Where's the justice of that? "
He settled his neck in his collar, and pushed his helmet
from his forehead, and stared across the sunlit space to
the intersecting roads by the Houses of Parliament, which
have been, and will be, a field of battle.
,,; It ain't altogether pleasant for us. Take me, for in-
stance. I come off duty at two. Then I goes and has a
bit of dinner. Well, when there's a demonstration, I
don't come off, and I don't get no dinner. The wife, she
says, ' When will you be in? ' and ' I don't know,' I says —
and it's cooking something can be heated up any time, or
getting something cold, or the wife she don't know what
WOMAN'S SUFFRAGE. 65
to be at. Then there's men drawn off from the other divi-
sions all over London, and them that's left has to do two
beats instead of one. Well, we don't complain. The
women are allright. They don't really mean to give no
trouble.
' '■ Of course, if you don't go away, Miss,' I says, ' I
must take you inside.'
I want to go inside,' she says, ' and I won't go away.'
" Then we goes along quite comfortable together.
People say, ' they needn't go to prison if they don't want
to.' Well, but they have an objec*. Supposing they did
pay the fine — what would people say then ? They'd say,
O, the women was only pretending — anyone can pay a
fine.' That's how it would go."
He cocked a grey eye at the pinnacles of Westminster,
the Palace which a white -souled Government appeared to
regard as a mediaeval fortalice, from which they could
safely harass and oppress his Majesty's lieges.
' And what was the beginning of all the trouble ? There
was some Liberal members what had promised the women
this and that at the election, and when they got in, they
did nothing. Prob'ly they found they couldn't. Then,
when some of the women came to see them, why couldn't
the members say so, civil . But not they. The women, they
sends cards in, and the members, they won't receive them.
Nat 'rally the women thought they wasn't treated fair — and
no more they was. So they took and held a little Parlyment
of their own, so to speak. That's the beginning of the 'ole
trouble.
Mr. Asquith, they say he's a obstinate man, and when
he says no, he means no. He could end the 'ole trouble,
but he won't. So there it is. But it was them Liberal
members that began it. An' who suffers along of them?
Why, the policemen, first and last. . . . I'm afraid there'll
be more trouble on Tuesday, I am indeed."
He smiled, shook his head, and stood to attention, salut-
ing a bony, weazened, death's head of a legislator, who was
tottering into the Palace. Outside the gates, a lady scarfed
L.P.L.S. F.
66 LONDON PRIDE AND LONDON SHAME.
in white, green and purple, was selling the suffrage news-
paper, hawking papers in the gutter, like any lagged little
newsboy, perfectly cheerful, self-possessed and dignified.
LEADERSHIP.
A clear voice speaking in a quiet room, filled with black-
attired, hard-faced working women, every head turned to-
wards the figure On the platform. She stands perfectly
still, save for an occasional gesture of the hand ; clad in
lilac-hued silk, relieved upon the dead green of the bare
wall. Her face is olive -hued, square, dark -eyed. The
minutes go by, and she never hesitates, or pauses for a
word. " If you went to a shop, and bought something
and paid for it, and if whatever you bought was not sent
to you, and you went to inquire why it was not sent, what
would you say — what would anyone say ? — if you were in-
formed that you could not have the goods for which you
had paid, until the salesman was satisfied that a majority
of women in the country wished you to have it ? . . . That
is precisely what the Prime Minister has said."
"■ Women in the Government service — elementary school
teachers, Post Office clerks, typewriters — who pass exactly
the same examinations as the men pass, who have exactly
the same qualifications as the men have, who do exactly
the same work as the men do, are paid less. Outside the
Government service, women doing the same work as men
are paid less than men — women in factories, in workshops,
everywhere. Women who work at home are allowed to
earn a shilling for sixteen hours' toil. They are not
represented."
There is a stir among the listening women, and a murmur
rises, and the blank faces kindle. They know . . .
The quiet voice goes on for an hour, kindly, equable,
musical, eloquent ; and when it ceased, the whole of those
stolid women started to their feet, and cried out, and waved
their arms, old and young and middle-aged. One among
them turns to the rest, and declares that she is proud to
WOMAN'S SUFFRAGE. 67
hear a woman speak as the lady has spoken — proud she is,
and the lady tells truth. And then everyone joins the
Union, and pays a shilling if she has it, and pins on the
green, white and purple ribbon. And so all disperse into
the hot, gritty, miserable streets of the grim wilderness
south the river, which is their prison and their children's
prison. But on the second day following, they march to
Hyde Park to show the world what they mean. Just that.
PROCESSIONAL".
A week before, a grave and stately pageant had filed
between thousands of respectful spectators, banking the
streets from Westminster to the Albert Hall. Women of
every class of society walked in fours beneath' the banners
blazoned with the symbols of their craft ; doctors of learn-
ing, doctors of medicine in their robes, graduates in cap
and gown, nurses in uniform, writers, painters, wealthy
ladies, titled ladies, factory girls, middle-class wives and
spinsters, collegians, teachers — thousands of women, quietly
determined to show the world what they mean. Just that.
The serried ranks of faces went by, impassive or serene
and determined, or tired and smiling, beneath the rich-
hued banners ; went by, and went by, and the banners
swayed past in the dusty wind that blow out of the grey
London sky, and the clock on Saint Martin's steeple marked
three-quarters ere they had all passed.
The good - humoured, lazy, curious English crowd,
watching by thousands all along the way, knew the women
were right. But thr politicians Up Above ("gabbling like
daws in a steeple) have the crowd and the wor/ien alike in
a net.
REBELLION.
A grrat hall, rrammcd from floor to roof with women,
to whom a woman is speaking from the platform with a
little, tired bn-ak every now and then in her resonant voice,
F 2
68 LONDON PRIDE AND LONDON SHAME.
but with a controlled fervour that lights sparks in the tense
atmosphere. Right and left of her, sit the women who are
going in a deputation to see the Prime Minister. There
are thirteen of them ; and each is ready to go to prison
like a malefactor.
Outside, lined against the railings by the police, is the
crowd, good-humoured, lazily curious, but with a sprink-
ling of the ugliest ruffians the great city spues out of her
festering deeps — where the politicians have never gone, and
never will go, and which they pretend do not exist. Out
into the sunshine and the watching eyes come the ladies,
and the policemen escort them through the breathless,
blazing streets, alive with watching eyes and the scurrying
mob. Men and women gape and run and struggle, and
concentrate in a heaving mass outside the door of the
Palace of Westminster. The women of the deputation in
their bright dresses, are borne through the multitude which
is struggling and craning to see ; there is a brief pause ;
and then they are borne back ; while the wolves from the
slums fight and shove and grope for pockets, and the burly
policemen keep them on the run.
Back again through the blazing streets and the watch-
ing eyes and the scurrying mob, to the hall. Refused !
The audience was refused.
The women packed together in the stifling heat, hearken
with a fervid determination to the girl on the platform,
who talks to them, steadily, evenly, logically, in her youth-
ful treble. She is dressed in a straight gown of brown
holland, and she is thin to emaciation, save for her rosy
childish face, the brown hair twisted a-top. . . . What
is going to happen next ?
Whatever it may be, says the slight, passionate figure
on the platform, it will be the fault of the Prime Minister.
Let us all remember that . When a Prime Minister is hated
as this man is hated, it is time he took counsel with himself.
WOMAN'S SUFFRAGE. 69
DEMONSTRATION.
Three hours later. The sun is going down in a red
conflagration behind the square new Government offices
in Parliament Square. People are massed along the pave-
ments, and across the roadways, and under the trees, and
the crowd is thickening every moment. The police are
drawn across the roadway opposite Saint Margaret's
Church, and across the road at the corner of Palace Yard,
opposite Whitehall . Viewed from high up in the House
of Commons, the crowd appears as a dense, moving,
speckled mass on two sides of the Square, flooding up
Whitehall and behind the trees to Westminster Bridge.
Omnibuses, covered vans, carts and cabs, half-submerged
in the living sea, plough slowly through its eddies, swung
end -on and cross -wise, and the " Urh — urh — urh " of the
mob rises all about them.
Palace Yard, nearer hand, is dotted all over with men and
women in evening dress, and members are congregating
at the corner gate and lining the railings. In the House
of Lords, a whilom Viceroy of India is warning her present
rulers of disaster threatening (first of all) women and
children. In the House of Commons, they are dis-
cussing an Old Age Pension Bill upon whose provi-
sions the women who keep the home are not consulted.
Somewhere in a Committee Room, honourable members
are debating whether a woman should be sent to prison
for giving a spoonful of liquor to a child, or not. It is
of these things that the women are telling the people.
The reporters of the Press Gallery are looking out of
the windows, and are using opprobrious language. Nothing
scandalises them in the House — they are past all that long
ago ; but that a crowd should dare to assemble outside
it, shocks them extremely. The division bell rings, but
as the members are congregated out of hearing in Palace
Yard, a policeman shouts " Division " at the top of his
voice. It is pleasing to behold stout old gentlemen, who
70 LONDON PRIDE AND LONDON SHAME.
have not run a yard for ten years, trotting apoplectically
across the yard with coat-tails flying, to vote for or against
something — they don't know what, but a vote is a vote,
and party is party, and nothing else matters.
Amid the oscillating, cheering, speckled swarm in the
streets a separate stream flows swiftly in one direction,
gathering size, and presently a blue -clad woman is visible,
being led by two policemen. The stream checks at the
mouth of the dark lane leading to Scotland Yard. Mounted
policemen edge sideways through the ferment, and a few
of the crowd groan loudly but without malice. A noise
of cheering runs up Whitehall. Members of Parliament,
messenger-boys and motor-car drivers are clinging like cats
to the high railings inside Palace Yard. Outside them,
the police are blandly picking people from their hand-
hold ; youths in straw hats, wearing a vacuous grin, are
being pushed along ; girls are sauntering and laughing ;
a woman carrying a baby is strolling as unconcerned as
though she were alone in a desert.
The line of police at the corner of Palace Yard, opposite
Whitehall, is suddenly bent inward, with laughter and
shouting. The policemen each embrace some five or seven
persons, and shove with all their might. , The impact
checks, wavers, is broken, and men are sent flying into
the retreating mass, the policeman's open hand set between
their shoulders, propelling them with the force of a piston.
They stagger, recover, look back with a grin, and are lost
in the throng. A girl, pressed by a mounted policeman
in the thick of the crowd, sets hand on his bridle, and
strokes the horse's nose, while the officer smiles benignly.
And all the while, the eddies in the tide are sweeping
hither and thither, and women one by one are being
escorted by policemen into the dark alley leading to
Scotland Yard.
Lights glittered suddenly in the dusk, and the trees and
ponderous buildings darkened upon the sky, and the sea of
faces shone lighter. The multitude began to ebb away.
Members sauntered back to the House, with a shrug of their
WOMAN'S SUFFRAGE. 71
dignified shoulders. A crowd, they said, is better fun than
the Old Age Pensions Bill, anyway.
Next morning, an excited dairyman, who discharged
pails of water upon the crowd beneath his windows, was
fined ten shillings. But between twenty or thirty women
went to prison. They had shown the country what they
meant. Just that.
Since the occurrence of the events described, and of other events,
and of their consequences, the Home Secretary, who is and remains
responsible for the treatment of Englishwomen in prison, has been
appointed to be Governor General of United South Africa. One
knows not which to admire the most — the reward of services per-
formed, or the compliment to South Africa. And a peerage? . . .
72 LONDON PRIDE AND LONDON SHAME.
XII.— ORATORS.
" His reasons are two grains of wheat hid in two bushels of chaff ;
you shall seek all day ere you find them ; and when you have found
them they are not worth the search."
■■'• PRAY talk as much as you please, ladies and gentle-
men," says the Spirit of Liberty, in this age of grace.
" Here in the centre of our great metropolis is a nice open
space, to which there is easy access from all parts, and
where the incorruptible policeman is specially detailed to
see fair play and to prevent bloodshed. Talk away and
be happy — so long," adds the Spirit, but in an undertone,
" as you don't, my children, proceed to action." The im-
plied condition is perfectly understood by the Hyde Park
orator.
Behold him now, in a state of beaming satisfaction, set-
ting up his little rostrum under the trees, hard by the green
lawns whereon the perennial loafer lies sleeping, face down-
wards. The little old gentleman, white-haired, with a mild
blue eye, who is making so passionate an oration, is a
sound Constitutionalist. " Your Radicals," he says, waving
a fragile white hand, '-' your Radicals " — withering empha-
sis — " what are they doing now? What are your Radicals
doing — them that used to hit straight from the shoulder
before the election? Ah ! but that was before the elec-
tion I Now, all they can do is to excuse themselves for
all their actions by hiding behind the example of Mr. Bal-
four. Of Mr. Balfour ! whom once they were wont to hit
straight from the shoulder. Now it's Mr. Balfour did this
— why shouldn't we? My friends, are not we Tories to
hit straight from the shoulder in our turn? "
All the while the little old gentleman, with a radiant
ORATORS. 73
satisfaction, is delivering these impassioned sentiments, a
gentleman leaning against the railings behind the orator
is darkly taking notes. Presently, he will arise and
destroy the Constitution. He has a very tall hat, and a very
short coat and a good deal of torso in his waistcoat. None
besides himself appears the least interested in the little old
gentleman. The group of spectators listen and gaze with
a wooden stolidity. Here are shop assistants, dandy and
straw-hatted ; nursemaids, three or four vague young
women, a soldier or two, a bluejacket in his No. I rig,
a sprinkling of the loafer, slouching, smeary, and languid.
Under the next tree a young man with extraordinarily
neat hair and immaculate linen, is preaching a religious dis-
course to another wholly stolid audience. Upon the ros-
trum, pallid fervour, perspiration, cries, entreaties. Round
about it, a dead wall of incurious faces. These hot gos-
pellers will go at it, watch and watch on till the shades
of night are falling, with the same unabated zeal, enthu-
siasm, and enjoyment.
Wedged between this group of religionists and another
gathering which is frankly atheistical, a grey-headed gen-
tleman in a straw hat is delivering his soul on the subject
of social democracy. He has a merry twist of features,
and a salient nose which holds the attention. The sun-
light illumines the tip of it, as he wags his head, and it
exercises a sort of fascination. This orator has it upon
him to defend Mr. John Burns from the aspersions of his
enemies. " Mr. John Burns," he cries, " is to my mind
— er-rer — the same John Burns as he was — er-rer — when he
led the — er-rer — dock strike. I don't consider, in my
opinion, mind you, that — er-rer — he has done so badly. I
think he's done — er-rer — very well." Follows a catalogue
of the benefits bestowed by Mr. Burns upon an ungrateful
nation. " Now 1 hear," continued the speaker, confiden-
tially, " that this Gover'ment has arranged to hold an
autumn session. What docs that mean? What — er-rer
— does it mean? It means that instead of dropping the
Gover'ment Bills into the — er-rer— waste-paper basket, like
74 LONDON PRIDE AND LONDON SHAME.
what Mr. Balfour would have done, an — er-rer— slaughter
of the innocents, if you like, the Gover'ment will continue
their labours and — er-rer — pass those Bills, which are un-
doubtedly, if you like, in my opinion, an — er-rer — benefit
to the nation." Pause. Perspiration. Audience utterly
unmoved. " Now why," pursues the orator, with undi-
minished cheer, " did Mr. Balfour yearly drop all Gover'-
ment legislation? Because the Tories didn't like work.
Well, nobody — er-rer— does. But some of us has to work,
nevertheless. But not your M.P. Tory. He wants to
get a bit o' shooting, and — er-rer — hunting, and— er-rer —
card -playing. And it being so as he is able to, he — er-rer
— if you like, does. Now the present Government " — etc.,
etc. This jovial optimist is wound up to go on for an hour
or two.
The next man is a cadaverous individual, with a face
like a discontented camel. He is possessed by a violent
objection to the Bible. He points his virulent observa-
tions by holding up to execration a little worn volume
bound in what booksellers call " paste-grain circuit." He
is so close to our Democratic friend that the two speeches
become intermingled. " The Irish tenants — er-rer — cottage
bill — the most contradictory, the most immoral book — four
millions spent on the land and where — er-rer — here, in this
book, you find authority for — a race of tenant farmers —
er-rer — do you want authority for murder, it's in the book —
and where — er-rer — could you spend money better — for
polygamy, in this book — in our overcrowded centres — for
celibacy, in this book, for luxury, in this book, for asceti-
cism, in this book — er-rer — the cause of true progress "
— and so on.
It's confusing, but the audience doesn't mind in the
least. No one betrays the faintest emotion, except a dark-
visaged man who stands below the anti -Bible man, and
grins to himself, and says " Good again 1 " at intervals.
But on the skirts of the assembly a party of foreign gen-
tlemen are wandering, with amazement depicted on their
amiable countenances. One is a pallid, spectacled person
ORATORS. 7 5
with a fluffy brown beard, wearing a Panama hat in a state
of advanced degeneration, and a grey morning suit that
would appear to have been made for another — and a thinner
— gentleman. He looks and peers and lingers, and strokes
his downy beard with fat white lingers. Ahead of him
marches bravely, his vast rotundity nobly projecting, a
short gentleman tastefully attired in a round grey hat, like
a pork -pie with a rim, and a grey frogged surtout. He
carries a slender cane with a solid silver handle. " You
can tell an Englishman a mile long," as I heard a guileless
German youth observe the other day, at the International
Congress of Architects. He meant, of course, a mile off.
Conversely, you can recognise the foreigner in Hyde Park
with an equal certainty. The little party led by the ma-
jestic person in the frogged surtout were amazedly noting
the institutions of English liberty — let us hope to the profit
of civilisation.
The anti -Biblical fanatic was flanked on the side remote
from the democrat, by another religious assembly. " When
I was a youngster," cries a bright -faced youth, with hair
well oiled and brushed back from his azure brow, " I, too,
was unhappy. (Of course, I'm still young, I know.) Now
I'm as happy as a skylark. Why? " etc. Indeed, he
looked supremely happy as he talked away to the ring of
wooden faces.
The next stand was occupied by a brown -faced gen-
tleman in a hard hat, jammed over his eyes. He had no
pulpit. 'He just stood on the common ground, like the
philosopher he was. " I'm only an ordinary working man,"
he said. " But I've read Schopenhauer and Spencer, and
Bellows, and Karl Marx, and Brown, and — and Ruskin, and
all of them. And why? How was it that I, a common
working man " — he had an indescribable relish for the
phrase — "was able to read all these great philosophers?
Because I chose. So could you, if you chose. And what
did I find, alter years and years ot study? Simply this :
That honesty was the best policy I ' Tin i startling con-
clusion so disgusted the tall policeman at my side that he
76 LONDON PRIDE AND LONDON SHAME.
said he could not stand no more of that lot ; and he re-
turned to the little old Constitutionalist over the way.
But it presently appeared that our philosophic student
had made a tremendous discovery, to which the maxim con-
cerning honesty was but the threshold. " I go to all these
different sects and parties," he said, " and I ask them :
What is the cause of the poverty of this country ? They
all give me an answer of their own. I go to the Socialist,
and he says, Unearned increment. There's no such thing.
His answer is, therefore, what is called in algebra an un-
known quantity. It is, therefore, nothing. I go to the
religious party, and he says, God ! Another unknown
quantity. I go to the " — and so on. No one, it seemed,
had any solution that did not involve that fatal unknown
quantity. Now came the discovery. " All poverty is due
to the simple fact that the banks control the currency. They
can stop all sales . (A sale, as I have explained, is only
a means of disengaging capital.) They can ruin any man.
They can actually get up and ruin any tradesman at any
moment. They can? They do. Because they control
the currency. Release the currency, and you and I, my
friends, where we have one sovereign in our pockets," slap-
ping that part of his person, " we shall have four. That's
where I want the wealth of this country to be — not in land,
— or houses, or banks — but in our pockets. And why is
it not ? " Here a solemn 'man in a soft hat stepped forward
and removed a noxious insect from the orator's low collar.
"Thank you. Why is it not? Because the banks con-
trol the currency."
Just behind the speaker, a bearded, filthy tramp, with a
face like putty, was secretly eating crumbs, which he con-
veyed from the recesses of his rags. Beside him a brother
loafer gazed at vacancy. A coloured gentleman, with his
hat on one side and an incredibly white collar, intruded
into the circle, thrust out a dusky chin, and departed.
Perhaps he was looking for Mr. Keir Hardie. For the
rest — stony, absolute, hopeless indifference. The philoso-
phic one removed his hard hat, mopped his brow, jammed
ORATORS. 77
his hat on again, and took up his parable, inveighing
against banks with undiminished enjoyment.
Long may the open-air Parliament flourish. Its oratory
attains, perhaps, as high a level as that recorded by Han-
sard, on the whole ; and it is less harmful. Many a
strange humour that, driven inwards, would work a fever
in the blood, finds in this agreeable exercise its natural
escape. Pent in the brain, it would gather sullen force,
which would suddenly explode in violent action, that now
dissipates into thin air. Often an honest enthusiasm burns
here, to who knows what good effect ? But, as experience
shows, the casual audiences are as little susceptible to rhe-
toric as any in the world. Frantic revolution, the beauties
of temperance, the consolations of religion, the reasonable-
ness of atheism ; these doctrines, and many more, are
preached with an equal fervour under the catholic and
paternal supervision of the policeman, and to the inexpres-
sible astonishment of the intelligent foreigner. And mean-
while the world continues to revolve upon its axis in the
ancient groove.
78 LONDON PRIDE AND LONDON SHAME.
XIII.— THE CRECHE.
" But we — pity us ! Oh, pity us ! —
We wakeful ; ah, pity us I —
We must go back with Policeman Day —
Back from the City of Sleep I
The Day Nurseries for the Children of Working Mothers
is the sufficiently descriptive title of one of these most
necessary of all benevolent enterprises. There ought to
be a day nursery in every mean street in every great city.
In London at this moment there are but a scattered few.
As the passenger, looking from the window of a train
gliding across the immense, dim wilderness of barbarous
London, catches here and there a sparkle where the low
sun strikes upon a pane of glass : so, in the mental prospect
of London's vast degradation, shine these points of charity.
But why (you ask) cannot the mothers look after their
own children ? The answer is simple — even appallingly
simple. It is because the mothers in barbarous London
must work all day at home or in mill or factory to get a
bare subsistence . Therefore they have no time to care for
their children. That bald statement is worth a little serious
reflection. Tens of thousands of women in barbarous
England are absolutely prevented from fulfilling their first
natural duty.
Here is an evil, insidious, deadly, and widespread, that
is steadily eating away the national fibre. We cannot now
trace its cruel ramifications throughout what is called the
social system. It is sufficient for our present purpose to
indicate its three main causes. These are : Sweated
labour, drink, and bad housing. The sweater, the publi-
can, and a combination of slum landlord and jerry-builder
THE CRECHE. 79
make the devil's trinity that is crushing the life out of
England. Their gospel is the gospel of cheapness.
The sweated labour consists in lowering men's wages
to starvation point, and then throwing the men out of em-
ployment and replacing them with their wives and
daughters, at lower wages still. Even of this scant
pittance the publican takes a heavy toll, the slum land-
lord and the jerry-builder a heavier. Then, under our
present economically perfect, but actually ruinous, indus-
trial conditions, both men and women are thrown out of
work altogether. But first the men are discharged, so that
the women have to work.
Let us see how these things work in practice at a day
nursery established in Ba'ttcrsea. The conditions which
prevail in that moribund district also prevail, with varia-
tions, at Hoxton, where is another nursery, and everywhere
in the barbarous provinces of London.
Battersea is not regarded as a particularly distressed pro-
vince. Yet here are hundreds of steady men out of work,
wandering the streets in vain quest of it. These are to be
most definitely distinguished from the wastrels who also
wander the streets, but not in search of work. The men
having nothing, the women must turn to. In Battersea,
laundry work is the chief industry. A laundry provides
only three or four days' work in the week. The collect-
ing, which occupies the rest of the week, is done by a few
persons employed for that purpose. The pay of the laundry
women is eight to nine shillings per week. That is abso-
lutely all they have for their families. They live in one
or two rooms in a wretched, shoddy tenement house. There
is no water supply except in the basement. They pay from,
four to six shillings a week in rent.
To earn their eight or nine shillings, they must work the
whole day long for three or four days each week. What
becomes of the children ? They are left to old women of
unrefined habits and of abysmal ignorance and indif-
ference ; or they are locked in or locked out. They are
neglected; ijl clad, ill fed, exposed to heat and rain and
80 LONDON PRIDE AND LONDON SHAME.
cold. They sicken and die in large numbers. The sur-
vivors are often enfeebled for life. Such is the Imperial
race in its cradle.
It must be admitted that even if the mothers were able
to devote their time to their households, their profound
ignorance of the simplest elements of domestic economy,
and of the right nurture of children, inflicts immense
injury upon their offspring. These women grew up in the
same blighting atmosphere of neglected home, of drink,
of squalor. They have all been to school, it is true ; and
the result is a remarkable commentary upon our methods
of education. But so much the more is the nursery required.
Grant Road is a drab street, sentinelled by two sullen
red public -houses. The pattern is repeated for miles on
every hand. You can pick out the day nursery from the
row of flat -fronted houses at once, because it has large
casement windows set wide open. Within, the ground
floor consists of one room running the depth of the house,
with a little bath-room built on at the back. It is warm
and airy, and very clean. Ten or a dozen children are
playing on the floor. Against the wall, beside the fire-
place, is ranged a row of wicker cradles, in which babies
are peacefully sleeping, a mottled curve of cheek visible
above the blankets . A pleasant - faced nurse in a print
gown is playing with three or four of the children. Other
children are sitting solemnly by themselves nursing dolls.
The eldest child is four years old. They are all clean and
neat, and perfectly contented.
Look more narrowly at these little creatures, and you
shall see that most of them, though they are pale, are not
unhealthy in aspect. But one, seated by itself, remains
perfectly motionless, staring with unblinking, incurious
eyes. It has that strange, indefinable seal upon its wan
features, the sign of helpless suffering. The nursery is its
harbour of refuge. All beyond those comfortable walls is
untold savagery . It may yet be saved — but for what ?
Truly, the state of England does no't suggest a hopeful
answer. But the good people who maintain the nursery
THE CRECHE. 81
have enough to do with the present without speculating
on the future. They relieve an immediate need. They
help the toiling mothers to save the children. They help
to steer those frail barks across the troubled waters of
childhood. That accomplished, so much is gained, at least.
A matron, a nurse, and a cook, with such assistance as
voluntary workers can give, keep the whole establishment ;
and wearing work it is. The number of children varies
from a dozen or so to 20 or 30. All these must be washed
and tended and fed. They are brought by the parents, or
by the elder children on their way to school early in the
morning, and in the same way they are taken home at
night.
In the afternoon the children are put to sleep in an upper
room. The dormitory is fitted with platforms raised a few
inches from the ground. On the platforms little mattresses
are ranged in rows. Here the children may regain the
sleep of which they are deprived overnight, for the poor
keep late hours and early. Not until the public -houses
close is the street allowed to sleep.
They are the mothers who benefit, as well as the children .
The mother will gratefully pay 3d. a day to the nursery,
knowing that the children are kept safe and happy and
well fed while she labours through the hours. Another
inestimable gift the nursery bestows upon the mothers, in
that the matron teaches them how to feed and how to nur-
ture their children — matters of which they know less than
the untutored savage in his native wild. They are eager
to learn, are these poor women, and grateful for the know-
ledge. It is true that some are unteachable, but these are
few — not more numerous, probably, than in any other class
of society.
But to working men who have lost their wives, the nur-
sery provides nothing less than a refuge from despair.
Consider the lot of a man who is left with three or four
small children. If he has work, he must leave the care of
them to a neighbour, who has more than she can do already,
or to some decrepit old woman, totally unlit for the charge.
L.P.L.S. G
82 LONDON PRIDE AND LONDON SHAME.
If he has no work, and there is no one to look after the
children, he must stay at home, and so be prevented from
looking for work. .There is, of course, the workhouse.
But, needless to say, the very word is utterly hateful to the
respectable poor — and for good and sufficient reasons. To
such a man the day nursery is salvation.
Now, here we are to note a remarkable fact. They are
the respectable poor who value the day nursery. The class
below them, the people of the abyss, are dead to all con-
siderations of their children's welfare. They spend their
money on drink. The children must take their chance.
Therefore the circumstances of the parents who bring their
children to the nursery afford an index to the conditions
under which thousands of steady working people are cruelly
suffering. The men are most often out of work. There-
fore the women must work, and therefore, if it were not
for the day nursery, the children must be neglected. Then,
of course, there are the men who drink, and again their
wives must earn money. And then there are the
men who have deserted their families, and who are living
in workhouses and Rowton Houses and common lodging
houses under false names. But the majority of the men,
it is the plain fact, despite all the theories of economists
and the elaborate fictions of free traders, cannot get work.
A vicious industrial system, a diseased social organism,
revenge themselves upon the nation. You may cut down
wages, you may cast out men and employ women because
they are cheaper, you may sell drink as freely as you please,
you may let the jerry-builder work his will, and you may
then pride yourself on national independence of character.
But for all these things there is a price to be paid. The
money you make goes in millions to maintain gaols and
workhouses and asylums and hospitals ; your children die
like flies ; you cannot get stout men for your Army ; you
breed Socialism. And, finally, if you have any pity for the
children of the poor, you must establish day nurseries, if
only because it is the least you can do — although it is so
much, so very much, to the poor — until better days.
THE CRECHE. S3
There should be a day nursery in every poor street. It
costs four to five pounds a week to maintain a day nursery,
even in the shoddy house of the jerry-builder. Threepence
a day is more than the mothers can afford, yet they pay it.
Now, how is this great scheme to be executed ?
G 2
84 LONDON PRIDE AND LONDON SHAME.
XIV.— FAMINE.
" Much mighty speech -making there has been, both in and out of
Parliament, concerning Tom ... In the midst of which dust and
noise there is but one thing perfectly clear — to wit, that Tom only
may and can, or shall and will, be reclaimed according to somebody's
theory but nobody's practice."
In the heart of the Borough there is an arched alley-
leading from the thronged pavement into what was until
lately a vile nest of slums, and which was accordingly inked
dense black upon Mr. Charles Booth's map of London
poverty and riches. The foul houses have now been cleared
away, and upon a part of the open space — narrow enough
even now — it is hoped that a school playground may be
made. The dull brick edifice of the school stands here,
a citadel in the midst of mean houses and tall blocks of
model dwellings, in which hides bitter poverty. It is a
" provided " school, in official slang ; in other words, it
is a school built and maintained in the face of grinding
difficulties, by a certain Church, for the sake of charity
and religion.
In the long upper schoolroom, where are the elder boys,
three large classes are under gentle and orderly instruc-
tion. The courteous headmaster owns not only the will,
but the ability, to tell the visitor the exact circle of cruel
circumstance which presses upon each boy. Each boy
knows that he knows, and trusts him, and he trusts them.
He calls one from the corner of the nearest desk, and the
youngster rises and comes naturally and fearlessly. He
is shabbily clothed, buttoned to the collarless throat,
narrow-shouldered, with a thin, pointed face, large, gentle,
grey eyes, and a lightly flushed cheek. He is threatened
with consumption.
FAMINE. 85
The headmaster has his record in his hand. It runs
something like this : — " No father. Mother at work, earns
1 os., five children. Rent, 3s. 6d." I give no names,
and alter the record in unimportant points ; because the
boys trust one to keep their confidence. That boy has
never had a full meal in his life, or a complete suit of warm
clothing. His face bears the stamp of that unquestion-
ing, helpless resignation which is the mark of the suffer-
ing child. Scan the wan faces ranged along the forms
— you shall see the same pitiful, hopeless resignation in the
eyes of the greater number. Here is a boy of twelve, who
looks but eight or nine, so meagre is he, whose feet are
bare, and his trousers in ragged fringes. His face is quite
white, his aspect beaten and dull. He is of the poorest ;
for boots are one of the tokens of respectability. These
children will continue to wear their boots when the sole is
clean worn away ; so that they come to school with the
upper leathers soaked, and sit all day with their bare feet
on the ground.
Here is a little red - headed chap, with black eyes,
diminutive as a weasel ; next him is a fair-haired child with
a delicate oval face, tiny like a doll. He is eight years
old, and he is the size of a normal child of three. His
light hair is cropped close, save for a fringe on his fore-
head, through which he peers trustfully up at the visitor,
as he whispers his age, and the fact that " yesterday mother
bought two bacon bones for dinner for 2d., because she
didn't have no more money." Near by is a short, square
boy, of a stolid aspect, pale as they all arc, and undersized,
but with a kind of determination about him. His father
left a widower with three small children, and this boy.
1 he father, who was (as usual) out of work, could find no
neighbour to take charge of the children, so he stayed at
home and took charge of them himself. The boy does
house work before school, and after. If he earns a penny
by a fortunate chance, he spends a halfpenny for to-day's
rations, and keep the balance tor to-morrow. If it were
not for the school, he would get no other food.
86 LONDON PRIDE AND LONDON SHAME.
The headmaster tells the boys who are receiving school
meals to stand up. Nearly half the boys stand. Those
boys whose fathers have got work that day are told to sit
down. Two or three sit down. It is to be precisely noted
that no meals are given by the school unless the master
knows by personal inquiry the circumstances of the boy's
parents. The school, which is poor in money, was forced,
as it were, into the distribution of one free meal to the
needy — only a little soup and bread — in this wise. Upon
a morning, when there was snow on the ground, a boy
came to the school and fainted upon the threshold. They
made him a couch of the other boys' coats, and did what
they could to revive him. He had had no food that morn-
ing, nor the whole of the previous day. They sent him
home with his brother, with a message to his mother, tell-
ing her to put him to bed and to send for the doctor. The
mother — a feckless wretch — kept him in bed for one day,
and sent him to school the next. He was so miserably
ill that the master again sent him home, with his brother.
He never got there. On the way he was taken violently
sick, and fainted in the entry to a court. A policeman
took him to the hospital, where he died.
Private charity was invoked to help to feed these poor
children ; and the teachers voluntarily sacrifice their time
to serving the meals. There is no difficulty whatever in
deciding who ought to be fed. The boys themselves, so
soon as there is any food in their homes, voluntarily
refuse the school meal. More, the parents, so soon as they
get work, will come to the headmaster and ask him to send
their children home to meals.
The elder girls, those of Standard VII., have a look of
better health, on the whole. There are but few of the
terrible white, hopeless faces. The headmistress will tell
you that not many of the underfed are capable of reach-
ing the standard before they are fourteen, when they leave.
But, even so, there are a few.
In the next room are the little girls ; and in them you
see the fatal process beginning. There, in the corner,
FAMINE. 87
against the wall, is a heavy, pallid face, the hair hanging
about it, the eyes wistful and darkened, of a little thing
of ten, who is scarce larger than a child of five. Near her
is another like her, and another, and another. The teacher
calls them up, and they crowd about the visitor, looking
up incurious, wholly languid. Is there such another
lamentable sight in all broad England ? Yes — in every great
town in the land, troops upon troops of foredoomed and
stricken children. No fault of theirs — no fault of theirs.
But what (you say) of the parents? 'Generally, speak-
ing, the parents are merely in direst poverty, through no
fault of their own. Here are some records, as they stand,
ascertained by personal investigation — not by the detective
methods of scientific " charity," but by means of familiar
intercourse.
"Father, invalid. Mother, hawker. Sometimes earns
two shillings in the day. Four children. One boy earns
seven-and-six a week. Rent 10s. a week." (One "fur-
nished " room — the last resort of the abject.)
" Father, irregular work, two or three days weekly. Four
children. Eldest eleven." This child, emaciated, thinly
clad, undersized, does the housework and tends the three
other children, before and after school. "Rent, five
shillings."
" Father, market porter out of work. Mother earns
eleven shillings a week at fur-pulling (one of the worst
trades in the world). Seven children. Rent, four shil-
lings and ninepence." And so on. There are pages of
like matter in the school books. Among them are a few
— but only a few — records of drunken and vicious parents.
" Words are only words." Nothing save the sight of
the eyes will completely and searingly convince. No argu-
ments will avail so long as good people decline to use
their senses. But so soon as they see, all arguments will
be superfluous. For they will see the shame of England.
And there will be no more talk. There will be something
done. It is time, God knows.
88 LONDON PRIDE AND LONDON SHAME,
XV.— THE HEART OF SPRING.
" And their sun does never shine,
And their fields are bleak and bare,
And their ways are filled with thorns :
It is eternal winter there."
My friend, whom I will call Tenby (because it seems to fit
his precise figure and neatness of character) told me of an
experience which befell him, to be exact, on a Saturday
afternoon, at the Bermondsey Town Hall. He considers
it an important and an illuminating experience. Of that
you shall judge for yourself. He has not the least objec-
tion to my setting it forth in print .
But in order to appreciate his point of view, you must
understand that Tenby is a good little man, who endures a
somewhat hard and monotonous lot with unfailing courage.
He is a City clerk. His chief interest in life consists in a
kind of studious philanthropy. He is a born reformer,
and therefore an idealist. It was quite natural, therefore,
that when he saw the announcement of the May Day Festi-
val of the Guild of Play and the Guild of Brave Poor
Things, to be held at the Bermondsey Town Hall, he should
buy a ticket.
" I had never been south the river before," he said. " I
took a 'bus from the office across the Tower Bridge, and I
came into a perfectly new kind of London. I don't know
what there is about the district, but it's different from others .
You know how I hate London — though it's a wonderful
place, mind you, the most wonderful place in the world.
Look at the business side — marvellous ! But I wasn't
thinking of business on Saturday. I was thinking of
people and the dreadful poverty. There's something about
THE HEART OF SPRING. 89
the huge, great warehouses of the riverside, towering over
the wretched dismal streets, and the loafing men and frowsy
women and the crowds of children in the gutters, that
makes me thoroughly miserable. Besides, I wanted to be
in the country, and I wanted the children to be in the
country too. It was a day of spring, you know — bright sky
and a sort of charm in the air that makes you restless — and
to see these miles of bricks and pavement, which shut in
the children and shut out the spring, is very depressing — ■
really, very depressing. The little touches of green in the
churchyard make it almost worse, I think. . . . There
was a bluejacket in the tram, too, and with his ruddy face
and his vigour, I declare he was like a light shining among
the pale, languid London people. He made you think of
the spaces of the sea and the clean wind on your face.
" I got out of the tram, and I tell you I was fairly
miserable. I couldn't see any hope at all for the poor
noisy children swarming on the dirty pavements and
nursing spotty babies on the public -house steps. Of
course, I know we shall get reforms in time ; but they come
so slowly that the children about us will be white-haired
paupers in the workhouse first. It's like trying to push a
great wall down with your hands. Of course, I believe
in the destiny of the English people and all that, but there's
no denying they're slow to move — wonderfully slow. I was
thinking of these things as I went up the steps of the Town
Hall — and there, too, the street children were crowding,
all pale and hot and dirty. I'm particular to tell you all
this because of what happened afterwards.
' Well, I went up into the hall, and really I assure you
I stepped straight into the spring. The whole floor was
just a garden of flowers and greenery, and the flowers were
children. There was a band of minstrels dressed like old-
fashioned country-folk, and they were playing old English
melodies that did your heart good to hear. But what struck
me was the happiness of the children. One somehow felt
it in the air more than noticed it, if you know what I mean.
It wasn't merely a performance ; they were really happy.
" The children all sat down in groups on the floor, a
9.o LONDON PRIDE AND LONDON SHAME.
green and yellow group, like the cowslips and green grass
they carried in bunches, a dark blue group with hyacinths,
and so on— all mingled together, you know, like a wood in
springtime. These were the very same children I had been
pitying so outside. The Guild of Play, which is organised
by Mrs. C. W. Kimmins, who also organised the Guild of
Brave Poor Things, is composed of ladies who teach the
children in the Elementary Schools in the evenings. They
teach them the jolly old English dances and songs, and
dress them for the parts. This was, of course, their May-
Day festival. It is combined with the Brave Poor Things
for the occasion. I was beginning to wonder where the
Poor Things were, when a boy, using a crutch with won-
derful skill came out upon the open space in front of the
platform, and read — very well he read, too — a little speech
welcoming the visitors . This was the head boy of the
Heritage School of Arts and Crafts at Chailey, Sussex. He
looked jolly and sturdy, despite his infirmity. Then a little
band of Poor Things came up and bowed, all wonderfully
dressed as Maid Marian, Friar Tuck, the Dragon, the
Clown, the Donkey, and the rest of the old mumming
characters. They were happy, there was no mistake. And
wonderfully active, though every one was crippled. They
made their bow and spoke their words like heroes, and went
to the side and sat round Maid Marian.
"Then the revels began. The children danced the Morris
Dance, led by a young lady who really is one of the most
charming dancers I've ever seen. What does Shakespeare
say? ' Like a wave of the sea ' — that's it. Then they
danced about the May -pole, and then they sang rounds
and ballads — I don't know v/hat you think, but I believe
there's nothing more beautiful, except Church music, which
is the most beautiful thing in the world.
" And all the time the children were happily revelling I
kept wondering what was it I felt. It was a real, new
sensation— a kind of glow and a sense of anticipation, as
when you wake up on a day when something glad is going
to happen, and you can't remember for a moment what it is .
It was when a little child in red, with fair curls, was singing
THE HEART OF SPRING. 9 1
a jolly old rhyme all by herself, and then the chorus joined
in, that I knew what was happening to me. I can't pro-
perly describe it, but it was like suddenly beholding the
living heart of the eternal spring. Here it was, right in
this room, within four walls, shut in by miles of squalid
houses — the very heart of the spring. I seemed to see
that the real spring was not all an affair of leaves and
blossoms and sunshine. These are — what shall I say? —
the ensigns of a force that lives and sings unseen ; and
these good and kind ladies held the secret of it, and had
given it, patiently and by degrees, and with much labour,
to the children. Yes, the children had the spring in their
hearts. It was wonderful. It was an illumination.
" And when Dr. Kimmins, speaking from the platform,
explained the work that is done by the Guild of Brave Poor
Things ; how they take the hopelessly crippled, and place
them in the school at Chailey, down in the country, and
teach them a handicraft, so that they can earn their own
living, girls as well as boys ; and how the principle upon
which the whole education is based is the teaching of cour-
age and indomitable cheerfulness, and the love of beauti-
ful things — why, somehow I saw a connection between this
noble doctrine and the heart of the spring. But I expect
I don't clearly explain what I mean. However, I can only
tell you this, that when I went away home through the mass
of clattering dismal streets, and saw the children swarming
on the pavements, I had quite a new feeling. I pitied
them, as I had done before. But I was no longer hopeless
for them. For I saw that not all the hideous mass of
brick and stone could crush the human heart, and that you
may bury the meadows and besmirch the sky ; and still
the spring will flower in the heart. However, all honour,
/ say, to the good and gentle women who plant that eternal
blossom in the dark places. . . .
' I've been talking an awful lot. But it isn't all fancy,
IS it } "
' No," I said. " I saw what you saw, and I .think it
true."-
92 LONDON PRIDE AND LONDON SHAME.
XVI.— PLAYMATES.
" Girls and boys come out to play :
The moon is shining as bright as day I
Leave your supper and leave your sleep,
And come with your playfellows out in the street 1 "
The London twilight is darkening upon the loud, in-
hospitable streets ; the footways are thronged with pas-
sengers making homewards ; and among them, you remark
little parties of children are steadily threading their way
in one direction. Near by, a huge bulk of school build-
ings looms above the housetops, graven heavily upon the
light sky that pales and fades so very far and high beyond
the little creatures, assembling down here on the soiled
pavements about the school. But there are lights in the
upper windows, for this is the hour of the Children's Happy
Evenings Association, when certain kind persons gather
together to bring to the children of poverty some of the
light and happiness of another condition of life. Above
stairs, in the school hall, three or four ladies have made
all ready.
A child of fourteen, with a patient, pale face and large
grey eyes, sits at the piano. At a word, she strikes up a
lively quickstep, and the children, who have been quietly
waiting upon staircase and landing, troop in two by two,
and march into the cloakroom, and out again.
Two ladies head the ranks, and they march in and out
in a scroll of figures familiar to the drill instructor, the
while the rest of the children are assembled.
Look at the faces as they pass. You shall see in these
poor girls of ten to fourteen years old, every type that is
known to you in every grade of society. The poor — it is a
PLAYMATES. 93
platitude, but one forgets it — are differentiated from the
rich, not by temperament, but by circumstance. Nature
brings forth her types, with their infinite variations, regard-
less of circumstance ; and in the faces of the children you
shall read her intention. Presently, circumstance will have
so wrought upon the child, that a certain kind of adapted
temperament is formed and hardened. But, even in child-
hood — and here is the cruelty — the mark of that invisible
branding begins to show. Look at this meagre, high-
shouldered girl of thirteen, her lank brown hair hanging
about a white face and heavy eyes. The mouth is a little
drawn. She knows what lack of sleep is, what cold and
hunger are — she has always known. Next her marches a
poor child with a congenital deformity of the lower jaw.
Behind them come two little crop -headed, round-faced
girls, jolly and smiling, careless of wretched clothing.
Here is a heavy and sullen countenance, that has been sub-
dued to that unlovely mask, softened even now in the ring
and rhythm of the music. Here is a pretty blue-eyed child,
whose flaxen hair is tied with a blue ribbon — you shall see
her like any day in Kensington Gardens ; but her clean
pinafore hides a ragged frock, and her boots are worn and
clumsy. So the double file turns in and out, and the pale
girl at the piano looks over her shoulder smiling, while
her thin fingers flutter upon the keys.
One of the ladies rings a bell . The march stops, and
the children line up round the walls. They are called to
choose their occupation for the evening. First, those for
dolls ; and a file of little girls marches happily to the dolls'
room. Then, those for drawing and painting ; then, those
for cutting out paper figures and making them into toys ;
then, those for sewing and embroidery ; then, those for
fairy stories. Each detachment marches into its allotted
room, which is under the charge of a lady.
The little people with the dolls are all seated at desks,
each with a doll, whose dress so gloriously outshines her
own. Some are dressing or undressing them ; others are
merely sitting perfectly still, nursing the waxen lady ; rapt,
94 LONDON PRIDE AND LONDON SHAME.
sober, wholly content. In the drawing and painting room,
the children are colouring outlines, or pictures cut from
the illustrated papers. Each has a little box of water
colours, whose palettes are scrupulously cleaned at the end
of the evening. They are taking great pains, and, for
the time being, they have forgotten all else. So with the
children who are colouring and cutting out figures and
folding them into toys . The sewing and embroidery pupils
are gathered about a table, at which a lady deals out ma-
terials and encouragement and advice. Most of them are
making kettle-holders, upon which a brown kettle, elabo-
rately shaded, is boiling on a red fire, amid a blue back-
ground .
Look through the glass panels of the room in which
the fairy stories are told, and you shall see a motionless
circle of pale faces, every eye turned upon the story-teller.
So it has been since the time before history — the circle
of eager eyes, and in the midst the teller of tales, the
good magician who comes to us through the ivory gates.
In the next room are four or five quiet little creatures,
poring over books. Their excellent notion of happiness
is a quiet place and a good book. Meanwhile, those who
have no desire for sedentary pleasures are playing and romp-
ing in the hall, together with two or three ladies, who
know the elusive rules of those children's games whose
charm is perennial, like the folk-lore from which they
sprang. So, for two hours, these little girls are made
happy with innocent enjoyment by kind persons who are
fond of them.
At the same time, the boys are enjoying themselves in
their own way. They are marched in to music, like the
girls, and are told off to their chosen occupations. In
the hall is a squad of plucky youngsters, which is being
drilled in calisthenics by a smart young corporal of the
Blues. He, too, is a volunteer in the cause, is this excel-
lent soldier ; and many is the good turn he and his com-
rades have done these youngsters . Weedy little chaps they
are, the most of them, with arms like pipe -stems and backs
PLAYMATES. 95
that bend like rushes. Some day, we hope, these little
sons of England shall be properly fed. Meanwhile, they
are doing their gallant little best against disastrous odds.
In an adjoining room, three or four couples are boxing,
with immense zest, giving and receiving tremendous pun-
ishment with a grin. They are supervised by two young
men who bear the stamp of public school and university,
and who pull them gently apart when they close, which
they do about twice a minute. Next door there is paint-
ing going on — the colour schemes conceived by the boys
being perhaps a thought more audacious than those of the
girls.
In another room boys are knitting and sewing ; solemnly
toiling with clumsy fingers, or plying their needles with
the deftness of long practice. Some are sewing neckties,
others are making little cloth purses. One little chap
brings for inspection a purse of purple cloth fastened with
a white button. His round face glows with inexpressible
pride and satisfaction.
So for a while all these forget the cruel wilderness of
street and court and alley into which they were born ; and
for a while they are happy.
Upon some twenty or thirty thousand children in the
London area is this gift bestowed every night during seven
or eight months of the year by the members of the Child-
ren's Happy Evenings Association. It is [not only that they
are made happy and are taught useful employments ;
although, if that were all, the work would still be
extremely worth the doing. The ladies and gentlemen who
give their time to the children do so for love ; and the
children know it. There is no question of services given
for money. It is a matter of friendship ; of good influ-
ences unconsciously disengaged, unconsciously received ;
of individual effort and individual success.
96 LONDON PRIDE AND LONDON SHAME.
XVII.— T. S. MERCURY.
" And so farewell to the Christian hero, ' the happy warrior,' upon
whom has come nothing that ' he did not foresee ' . . . We know
that we cannot imitate the actions and characters of great men ;
we can only appreciate them : no effort of ours will place us on a
level with them. Yet we pray also that some good influence may
flow from them to us which may raise us above the conventionalities
of the world, above the fashion of political opinions, to dwell in the
light of justice, in the constancy of truth."
A LITTLE sign -post planted at the corner of a sandy
lane, and bearing the legend " To Training Ship Mercury "
— and that is all the indication given to the world of a
great enterprise and a great achievement. That, and a
brief notice in a solemn and ornate work on " Hampshire
at the Opening of the Twentieth Century," by W. H. Jacob.
" The establishment and upkeep of the training ship Mer-
cury, moored off his estate on the banks of the Hamble,
has been the noble work of Captain C. A. B. Hoare since
1885," says the author, and proceeds to a few statistics.
The lane winds through meadow and pasture, and
emerges abruptly from between thick hedges upon a tall
block of irregular red building, closed about with trees.
The visitor thus arrives as it were by accident. The house,
too, for some indefinable reason, seems to wear an acci-
dental aspect. It is unlike other houses ; and yet it is hard
to specify the point of dissimilarity. It is plain and solid
and capacious — so are many mansions. But its windows
look out from unexpected spaces of wall, and its chimneys
overtop the steep roofs at unusual places. It would, for
instance, be impossible mentally to plan the house from
an external view. Memory even refuses to picture a front
door, suggesting that the entrance was approached round
T. S. MERCURY. 97
the corner by way of a smooth lawn, with an old capstan
in the middle, and that it led immediately upon a maze
of passages, which turned about mysterious angles. But
on every hand the wide rooms, crammed with ancient furni-
ture and vast armchairs and curiosities from far countries,
looked out upon the pure tranquillity of the autumn land-
scape. The place was wrapped in a profound quietude.
A bee wandered in from the yellow roses clustering about
the window, and wandered out again. Beyond, a cleft in
the still foliage of the garden revealed a patch of shining
water and the spiring masts of a full-rigged ship.
This was Captain Hoare's residence, as owner and com-
mander of the Mercury. He had others, for information
concerning which the curious may consult Mr. Jacob's illu-
minating pages in " Hampshire at the Opening of the
Twentieth Century." At the side of the house is a wide
verandah, in which is a large scale half-model of a masted
ship, equipped with appliances for learning her rig. Up-
stairs, approached by a tortuous passage, out of which the
rooms open like ships' cabins, is a great chamber filled
with a magnificent collection of models. Here are brigs,
schooners, three-deckers, first-rates, frigates, liners, bat-
tleships, cruisers, torpedo craft, most delicately and won-
derfully made to various scales, together with larger models
of various parts of construction, and a miscellany of nau-
tical appliances. In another part of the house is a
panelled reading room, which the boys are allowed to use
under certain restrictions with regard to conduct.
Below the house, towards the river, is another building ;
and lifted high upon the wall hangs a life-sized crucifix.
The bronze Figure is wreathed about with clustering
passion flowers ; and over the head, beneath a canopy, a
light burns all night, beaconing down to the river, where
the ship is moored. An inscription, partly hidden by the
fading leaves, is graven upon a stone beneath the feet.
1 lire it is : —
" Dedicated to minds th.it can soar, that will rise and
not be discouraged by obstacles or difficulties, ili.it will
L.P.L.S. H
98 LONDON PRIDE AND LONDON SHAME.
chance and dare for what they love and know to be right.
44 To co-operation, combination, dash, perseverance, and
unselfishness, this building and its adjuncts are fearlessly
dedicated for harmony, the good of mankind, and to hearts
that can beat for others .
" Its ideal is Good Friday's hero."
44 This building," in the mind of the author, is not that
which is made with hands, and since the things which are
unseen are eternal, we are come to the heart of the matter.
It lies in that blunt and noble legend, plainly cut in the
stone, beneath the passion flowers. None that reads it,
passing by, can forget it.
41 This building," then, is surely the gradual, indefa-
tigable work of the education and inspiration of the hun-
dreds of boys who are brought hither from many varying
surroundings to become stout servants of the State.
They are even now filing into the chapel for the brief
midday service. Here are near a hundred boys, all dressed
in bluejackets' uniform, and their ages range from ten or
twelve to sixteen. Their cropped heads are bare ; they
are tanned and clean and sturdy. The keen faces bear
the unmistakable stamp of discipline and the eyes are
steadfast .
As they file into the dark chapel, each boy picks up a
little pile of devotional books from his chair, and kneels.
Beyond, out of the pictured dimness of the chancel, gleam
the gold circlets of haloed saints and martyrs. As the
chaplain reads the short service not a boy but is wholly
attentive. When the service is done, each boy replaces
his books with exact precision, and they all file out, to dis-
perse to their various duties and classes of instruction.
44 This building and its adjuncts " include, besides the
chapel and the Mercury herself, a gymnasium, a theatre,
a cricket field, a hospital ship, and a miniature railway.
You are to figure them, not as disposed upon the estate
in a regular plan, but as placed here and there among the
trees and lawns and the fields of sedge and marshland, as
the need arose, the whole scheme developing piece by piece,
T. S. MERCURY. 99
rather than as conceived at the outset and completed by
degrees. The lines of the model railway run about the
estate and down to the water's edge, binding all together.
In the engine shed, concealed by a grove of trees close
by the house, are the two locomotives and the train. The
little engines, their brass -work shining, stand about four
feet high ; the train consists of open trucks, furnished with
fixed seats, and a real guard's van. No more irresistible
plaything was ever devised for use.
The theatre is a plain brick building of considerable
size. The stage is large enough to accommodate a cast
of twenty or thirty. There are a sunk orchestra and a
complete equipment of drop-scenes and flies, at the back
of which are the wardrobes containing costumes and pro-
perties. The front of the gallery is adorned with medal-
lions, modelled in high relief, of great artists and com-
posers. These embellishments, the decorations, and the
scenery are all the result of the efforts of the establish-
ment.
A little below the theatre is the gymnasium, and beyond
are the playing fields. The railway lines run across the
marsh that lies between the gardens and playing fields and
the river, upon a causeway of made ground and out upon a
jetty. Half way down, the hospital ship is moored among
the flowering sedge. It is the hulk of a big fishing smack,
roofed over and tarred black. The interior has been con-
verted into a hospital ward, with nurses' room and kitchen.
A door cut in the side opens upon the causeway. Within
that clean, smooth chamber of honey - coloured wood,
three or four youngsters are lying in bed, and the con-
valescents are dining at a little table, under the presidency
of the uniformed sister. The port -holes are open, and the
quiet air blows in from the sea.
A little way from the jetty the Mercury Is moored head
and stern in the stream. She is a brig of some five hundred
tons, who served her time at sea as a tea-clipper. The
commander has his quarters in a green-painted deckhouse
on the poop. The boys live on the main deck, below.
II 2
ioo LONDON PRIDE AND LONDON SHAME.
The mess tables, placed thwartships and set with shining
mess tins, Navy fashion, are ranged on each side. Aft
is the roomy galley ; forward are cabins. Everything is
immaculate and neat to a hairsbreadth. At night, ham-
mocks are slung from the deck -beams ; by day, they are
stowed in the nettings.
A hundred boys or more are always under training.
They are instructed by naval pensioners in all that pertains
to seamanship, and they attend school daily. They are
also trained in music by a bandmaster, and a good band
is maintained. At sixteen — with hardly any exceptions —
they enter the Navy, in which they pass immediately as
first-class ship's boy. At eighteen they are rated ordinary
seamen. Here we may appropriately quote once more from
"• Hampshire at the Opening of the Twentieth Century " : —
" Nearly one thousand boys," says the author, " have
passed through the training ship, which is no mere hobby,
but one of the best and most successful institutions for
training the young and preparing them for useful and
manly careers. High tributes have been received from
the Admiralty and War Office as to the efficiency of the
institution."
Such, then, is the work of one man. We are all of
us somewhat insistently aware of the new phases of the
old quarrel between riches and poverty, which is swiftly
drawing" to new issues. Mr. H. G. Wells, in his book
(" In the Days of the Comet ") has stated the case with
his peculiarly brilliant subtlety of presentment, and, with
a profound significance, he finds no solution save by
miracle. Well, the miracle has happened — not Mr. Wells'
particular miracle, but another. It is happening every day.
As the high hedges, receding, hide the tall red house,
the playing fields, the scattered buildings, the slender ship
resting on her own image in the still water, amid the rust-
ling sedge and the quiet meadows, " this building and its
adjuncts " are painted in the mind like a dream. But it
is no dream ; and, in the remembrance, the words engraven
on brass below the feet of the bronze Figure on the cross,
T. S. MERCURY. 101
half hid beneath the clustering passion flowers, start forth,
like the writing on the wall : —
" All sailors, soldiers, sad and suffering hearts, please
will you take care of them."
io2 LONDON PRIDE AND LONDON SHAME.
XVIII.— MEDICAL.
" The Thracians wept when a child was born, and feasted and
made merry when a man went out of the world, and with reason."
The Medical Student from the Hospital turns out of the
main road down a malodorous passage (with a post at the
entrance) into a quiet court with a broken pavement pf
rough concrete. On the left hand and across the end are
mean houses ; on the right is a high brick wall, along
the top of which a cat obscenely loiters. Beyond the wall
rise the steep red -tiled roofs, shambling chimneys, and
rickety dormer windows of old, rotten houses . The Medical
Student knocks at a door whose side post is inscribed with
a French name. It is that of the grey-bearded, stout, old
man who opens the door and greets the ,£ doctor " cheerily.
He is a cabinet-maker ; the front room — whose open door
reveals a litter of brown wood — serves him for workshop
and living room. The atmosphere of the house is com-
pounded of many evil savours ; but the sum of them re-
solves into an odour of essence of tallow, thick and pene-
trating. Up the narrow and steep stairs goes the Medical
Student, the half - open doors on every landing giving
glimpses into the crowded cages of the children of poverty ;
knocks at a door on the third floor, opens it, and goes in.
The room is about eight feet high, and (say) ten by eight
in length and width'; the essence of tallow is concentrated
in this chamber of birth— and often of death — whose rent
is four shillings and sixpence per week. The window is
shut, and there is a fire burning in the hob grate. In the
room, besides the patient, are the stout, stolid woman who
is acting as nurse— she is a friendly neighbour, qualified
MEDICAL. 10
j
for the office by a kindly nature and a profound ignorance
of its duties — another neighbour nursing a little girl, and a
small boy, his cheeks red and hard to the touch, by reason
of a prevalent skin disease. A low, frowsy bed occupies
a third of the room ; there is a pale, patient face on the
pillow, a little bundle lying beside it.
" Better to-day, doctor, thank you. Yes, I took the
medicine. Yes, it's my sixth child." A weazened,
wrinkled, skinny little animal is the sixth child, produced
for the medical eye. Being a girl it will probably live —
to have other little girls of its own. The Medical Student,
kindly, competent, and brisk, does what he has to do, makes
certain entries in his note -book, and goes out. He and a
colleague attended the woman in her confinement ; to him
belongs the care of the case for a space of eleven days,
when the patient, who will be up and about by that time,
receives her discharge from the hospital books. There
she lies, day in and day out : the husband gets his own
breakfast and the children's breakfast, such as it is ; the
neighbours come in and tend her ; the two children who
are not at school run in and put ; the three who are at
school come in again to tea ; the husband comes home to
his supper, which is eaten on a corner of the table which
holds the wash - hand basin ; then — somehow — they all
sleep in that kennel . Do the husband and wife suffer ?
Well, you are to remember that they have long since ac-
quired the stolid acquiescence of the animal. The chil-
dren ? They suffer indeed, for all young things must needs
suffer for the lack of the primal necessities — good food,
h air, quiet sleep. O, they suffer ! And so many do
not die.
( Hit again into the fresh autumn air, into the bustling
main street ; which , bordered on either side with' miles of
the meaner sort of shops, runs wide between belts of slum.
I he tributary streets, rigid channels of dusky brick, run
ba< 1' a1 right angles, and turn into narrower streets, which
turn again into alleys, whirh resolve them {elves into courts.
In every room in every street lives a whole family. Street
104 LONDON PRIDE AND LONDON SHAME.
and alley and court are thronged alike with pallid, restless,
noisy children. Under the feet of the passengers in the
main road, playing in the gutters of, the side streets,
clustered about the sewer gratings in court and alley,
are children, children, children. The noise of their
playing and quarrelling, the clatter of their myriad feet,
never cease. Many die : but the slow-footed hearse can-
not keep pace with them ; they are ever coming and
coming. ... It is the same in any quarter of London,
once you pass the barrier of respectability which presents
its front of gentility to the main streets and thoroughfares.
Always, behind that British mask of respectability, the
welter of slums .
The next case lives in a room in a row of dwarf houses,
whose strip of front garden is filled with some poor ruin
of summer flowers. Case number two is a cleaner case.
There are sheets on the bed, a toilet cover on the chest
of drawers, a carpet on the floor, and the window is open.
Here is the same pale, vacant face on the pillow, with the
same little bundle beside it — but the contents of the bundle
are better to see. "All well? That's right," says the
Medical Student, closing his note-book when he has done.
" Good morning." " Good morning, doctor, and thank
you."
" She's a young wife, with a younger husband," remarks
the Medical Student. " He's quite a boy, is the husband.
The child — only the second — was ' B.B.A.' — born before
arrival of doctor. They very often are. Curious how the
people will put off sending till the last moment ; but they
keep about till the last, you see. Now for a dirty room."
Turning into the gloomy quadrangle of a high block of
model dwellings — modelled, apparently, on a prison — the
doctor pauses in the dark entry to tuck his trousers inside
his socks — for reasons. The outer door opens into a thick
darkness, and the familiar essence of tallow, with a slightly
acid tincture, this time ; another door opens into a room
nearly as dark and quite as tallowy. A grey light, filtering
down from the roofs high out of sight, merges into
MEDICAL. 105
obscurity beyond the dirty table by the window ; between
the table and the invisible bed against the wall glimmers
the dull red of the fire. A stout, pale, cheerful woman is
sitting placidly in the dark ; her eleven days have expired ;
she is well, save for the need of a " little stren'thenin'
medicine, doctor," and will be discharged to-day. The
baby is weighed by the careful Medical Student in a towel
and a spring scale like those carried by rural postmen.
4 Eight and a half pounds — who would have believed
it ! You should be pleased, missis," says the Medical
Student, cheerfully. '"And now you won't see me any
more."
" And very glad of it, too," returns the lady, with an
amiable smile.
" Why, I thought you liked me to come, missis? "
" An' so I do, and thank you very much, I'm sure — but I
shall be glad indeed to see the back of you," replies the
lady, combining some obscurity of meaning with the same
amiable smile.
And so she is left sitting stolidly in the vermin-haunted
darkness, like a cow in a foul stable.
" The model dwellings are often the worst," observes
the Medical Student. " Lower rent, lower class of people,
you see."
Exactly. Another complexity in the housing problem.
The trustees of these dwellings provide two rooms, a
scullery, and conveniences, for less rent than the landlord
charges for a single room in which one would decline to
kennel a dog of any value . But, if the tenant will reduce his
clean quarters to the same state of indescribable filth, what
are you to do ?
At the end of a T-shaped court four feet wide, in a room
on the second floor, case number four has had seven chil-
dren ; and the seventh cost her forty-three hours' travail.
Will that consideration act as a deterrent in the future?
Not in the Least. She was resigned, and even cheerful, at
tin- time ; she i apparently contented now, lying in the
usual dingy bed again t the wall, in the usual reck of tallow.
106 LONDON PRIDE AND LONDON SHAME.
A red-covered novel lies open on the broken chair by the
bedside. Mr. Max Pemberton may be gratified to learn
that the work in question is called " The Iron Pirate."
There is another dingy bed with a dark red coverlet
wedged in along the wall between the door and the window,
wherein sleep the six children. Beside the fire sits the
usual neighbour, nursing the usual little girl ; another
small girl and a ragged boy pervade the room ; and a
solid old lady in black, with a nose and chin curving to-
wards each other, stands on the only unoccupied piece of
floor, wearing an air of aggressive respectability. She is
the patient's mother, and so she remains when the room
is cleared of the rest. This stout old veteran tells us with
unobtrusive pride that she has thirty-six grandchildren ;
and when the Medical Student retorts that another mother
of another patient of his rejoices in ninety grandchildren,
she receives the statement with silent incredulity, merely
observing that she hopes that she may be " spared " to be a
great -grandmother of many.
Down a court, round a passage, up a broken stair and
across a landing with a hole in the floor, into the strongest
essence of tallow we have yet encountered. The usual
small fire, the usual cloths hanging over strings clotted
with flies, the usual soil and grime and smear, rotting
woodwork, festering walls. The head of a hoarse, pale
woman is propped on the iron rail of the bed. She is
gazing dully out of the window, where a sheet, hung out
to dry, hangs in wet folds on a background of dark wall,
like a winding-sheet. Seated at the table beneath the win-
dow is a small, unwholesome, yellow man. He is sharing
a meal with the child on his knee. Tea in a milk-can,
bread, butter, haddock, sponge, flannel, yellow soap and
a dirty towel or so — with these is the table spread. In
obedience to the etiquette invariably practised on these
occasions, the small man vanishes swiftly, taking the child
with him. The patient, it seems, has had one piece of
bread and butter during the last twelve hours. She is given
an order for a daily dinner. The husband is out of work.
MEDICAL. 107
But the pale, hoarse woman on the bed, staring dully at the
heavy white folds of the winding-sheet, makes no com-
plaint. Going out, the Medical Student passes the small
unwholesome yellow husband leaning against a post, pipe
in mouth. There is something in his attitude which sug-
gests that he spends much of his time in the same slouching
occupation.
The day's visiting is done, and the Medical Student feels
a certain desire for a bath. But, there are many worse
places than those on his list in London town.
Through the barrier again, on the polite side thereof —
the whited side — going City-wards down Fleet Street, the
level autumn sun behind us. The glittering, many-
spotted street, the tall houses half clothed in shadow and
half in golden radiance, ascends beyond the dark bar, set
with gold, of the railway bridge, to the piled magnificence
of St. Paul's, whose sunlit columns and floating dome are
jutted upon by the black spire of Saint Martin's Ludgate,
and veiled for a passing moment by a plumed white wreath
of smoke. . . . Here is the splendid semblance of our
London ; and the golden cross that flames on the tiptop of
the crested dome, looks far and wide over the vast plain
of dusky roofs ; where, out of sight, busy, irresistible, piti-
less, the Wheel ever turns and turns, flinging wider and
wider the tainted circles of ignoble life ; multiplying, hour
by hour, the number of the foredoomed children of the
poor. There, in the immitigable law of reproduction, lies
the central factor of the problem ; blink it as you may.
io8 LONDON PRIDE AND LONDON SHAME,
XIX.— SURGICAL.
' The. permanently mobilised army which is always in action,
always under fire against death."
There is one benefit, unique of its kind, which is free
to the poor. It is nothing less than the highest skill in the
art of healing. Every day, men and women and children are
hurt or maimed or crushed by sudden accident. Every day,
the secret invasion of that unseen force which is ever work-
ing to transmute the living organism, and gradually to
change it into what we call death, is dreadfully discovered.
Science (which is but a name for the knowledge of natural
laws), after incredible labours, has taught men how, by
the ingenious employment of nature's own methods, not
only to heal or to alleviate suffering, but to check and turn
aside — at the steel's point— the very processes of dissolu-
tion. By the profound knowledge of the scholar, welded
to the artist's dexterity, is this miracle daily performed by
the surgeon. You shall see a great artist at work.
Within the entrance door of the hospital, the visitor is
aware of another world from the vague and noisy welter of
the streets without . It has its own atmosphere, a faint and
pungent aroma of antiseptic chemicals. There is a sober
hush upon the place, a sense as of grave issues impending.
The careless futilities, the stir and turmoil and strife are
all laid aside. The rows of quiet faces on the pillows, that
pass into view through the open doors of the long wards,
as you ascend the stairs, know them no more for a time,
or, perhaps, for ever. Here, life looks death in the eyes.
For some, death draws nearer and nearer, through the long
hours, until only the figure of the surgeon, kind and im-
penetrable and courageous, stands between.
SURGICAL. 109
Below, in the sterilising chamber, every cloth and dress-
ing and bandage, and the surgeons' and the nurses' linen
overalls, are being prepared for the operation. They are
sorted into perforated metal drums and square cases,
which are stacked into huge boilers, into which steam is
driven at a certain pressure for a certain time. Then, the
perforations being closed by a sliding shutter, the drums
and cases are sent into the operating theatre, their contents
being ready for use. All the instruments are subjected
to the same process. From an Adjoining chamber warmed
and purified air is pumped into the theatre. Four or five
nurses have been at work for some six hours preparing
every detail ready to hand for some hours' strenuous busi-
ness, during which there must be no mistake — no mistake
at all — no delay, and no confusion.
The patient is lifted from his bed in the ward and laid
upon a wheeled carriage, which is conveyed upstairs in the
lift, and thence into the anaesthetic room, adjoining the
operating theatre. A doctor sits at the patient's head, and
begins to administer the anaesthetic. He is so quiet, so
perfectly composed, and so entirely and obviously knows
his business, that his mere presence is steadying to the
patient, as the cap is placed over his face, and the bag pul-
sates with his breathing.
Next door, in the white chamber, fitted with spacious
wash-basins, the great surgeon is taking off his coat. He
hangs it outside the room, aRd puts on a sterilised white
overall, like a surplice, and a nurse ties the strings at the
back of his neck. So endued, the great man irresistibly
suggests a bishop. He is, indeed, a High Priest — but of
another ministry. The assistant surgeon also attires him-
self in a white overall. Both men roll up their sleeves.
So does the young house surgeon. Then all three wash
and scrub and rinse their hands, again and again. Then
they draw on tight india-rubber gloves.
The soft -footed nurses, who arc also clad in white over-
alls, and who have rolled their sleeves to the shoulder, pass
noiselessly to and fro, making the final disposition of cases
no LONDON PRIDE AND LONDON .SHAME.
of instruments, basins, and glass bowls of pale blue disin-
fectant. Three or four doctors enter, change their coats
for overalls, and engage in subdued talk with the great
surgeon. They have come to see him perform, as a master
craftsman .
The operating theatre has a wide and high" north light,
like a studio. The walls are tiled, the ceiling is painted
glistening white, the floor is laid in mosaic. The students'
gallery is faced in white marble, and the guard-rails are of
polished brass. In the centre of the room is the operating-
table, whose top is a sheet of burnished copper, and which
is fitted with wheels and levers to raise and lower and in-
cline. At the foot of the table and round the walls are
ranged glass -topped tables bearing basins and bowls and
instruments, dressings and chemicals, each in its appointed
place. There are three or four nurses, each of whom
knows precisely what she has to do, and exactly when to
do it.
The patient, who is now wholly unconscious, is wheeled
in from the anaesthetic room adjoining. A rod is run
through loops in the bedding on which he lies, on each
side, he is lifted bodily upon the operating table, and the
bed is wheeled out. The nurses are busy about the help-
less figure, and the ansestheticist sits at its head, his hand
upon the covering that fits over the face. A glass table
stands at his elbow, bearing certain little bottles. From
one, he now and again shakes a few drops upon the cover-
ing that hides the patient's face, save the chin and a patch
of darkly flushed temple. In this clean white shrine, in
which the surgeon is about to pit his skill and science and
tried resolution against no less an enemy than death him-
self, there is perfect quiet and absolute order. There are
no instructions issued — there is no need for them. The
forces are drilled to perfection,
In the antechamber, the great surgeon, adjusting his
gloves, ends the story he is telling. His face becomes
grave, the eyes suddenly alert. He walks into the theatre,
together with the assistant surgeon and the house surgeon,
SURGICAL. in
and followed by the doctors. He takes his place at one
side of the prone figure ; the assistant surgeon stands on
the other side, the house surgeon, with three or four nurses,
at the foot, beside the semi-circle of glass tables which
carry implements and apparatus . The surgeon takes a little
shining knife, and begins. He is perfectly cool and un-
hurried, and every deft manipulation is characterised by
the same unfaltering decision. The various instruments
which he requires seem to arrive in his hand by magic. As
he works, the assistant surgeon clips the ends of arteries
with long steel clips. There is hardly any effusion of
blood . No one says anything at all . The nurses beside the
glass tables are all quietly busy, handing this, receiving
that, exactly at the right moment. Presently there is a
pause. The great surgeon, his face a little upturned, his
eyes on vacancy, his mouth tightening, his right hand feel-
ing — feeling. He has a picture in his head, clear to the
least detail of anatomy, and his fingers are following that
picture. The whole scene is for the moment curiously
ecclesiastical— the upraised countenance of the high priest,
the white vestments, the grave, attentive faces all looking
one way, the silence. . . . The next moment it is broken
up ; the great surgeon, his agile, sure fingers at work
again, looks round and explains what he has found, in a
sentence or two. A word, and an electric lamp is held
over the cavity in that dark house of life, while he com-
pletes his work. Then with, pliers and curved needles,
both surgeons begin to stitch. " Tell the next case to be
ready," says the great man. He draws out the last needle,
lays it on the glass table, and walks away. Within twenty
minutes he has explored the patient's interior mechanism,
found a something that clogged it, removed that something,
cleansed the machinery, and sewn up the incision. The
nurses arc again busy about the still figure, preparing it
for its removal to the ward. All the while, the anaesthe-
ticist, his watchful lingers busy about the helpless head
and fa< <•, has sat there, with composed and vigilant face.
H2 LONDON PRIDE AND LONDON SHAME.
Now he rises, and within the next ten minutes he is sitting
there as before, at the head of another still figure.
Thrice again does the great surgeon perform the same
miracle which — unlike some other miracles — comes off.
Four duels, with death as protagonist, does he fight that
afternoon, in the dizzying, fume -laden atmosphere, under
concentrated pressure. Then he goes quietly away. There
are many chances to one that within three weeks or
a month those prone figures will be out again in the sun-
shine, alive and well. To how many homes does the sur-
geon bring unutterable relief from the great dread — to how
many does he secure years of happiness ? His rewards,
measured in money, are often great ; and who would not
heap him with wealth, if that were all ? But he is debited
with a score of gratitude that can never be paid — the grati-
tude of the poor.
CULTURE. 113
XX.—CULTURE.
" - Mind and matter,' said the lady in the wig, ' glide swiftly into
the vortex of immensity. Howls the sublime, and softly sleeps the
calm Ideal, in the whispering chambers of Imagination. To hear it,
sweet it is. But then, outlaughs the stern philosopher, and saith
to the Grotesque, What ho I arrest for me that Agency. Go, bring
it here I And so the vision fadeth.'"
The lecturer, who would seem to be of foreign extrac-
tion, shakes hands at the door with each of his extremely-
select audience, as she — for they are nearly all ladies —
arrives at the door of the lecture-room. The grace of
the ceremony is a little marred by the pre-occupation of
the lecturer, who, for reasons known only to himself, is
excessively anxious to discover the representatives of the
Press, before they enter the hushed chamber of philosophy.
A gigantic and magnificent footman, in powder and plush
small-clothes, ushers the distinguished audience to their
seats.
The majority are late. " I suppose," says one silken lady
to her neighbour in furs, " he said a quarter to so that we
should all be here by a quarter-past." But she knew, and
we all knew, that the lecturer would be delighted to
welcome these humble seekers after truth at any hour.
The carpeted room, with the marble mantelpiece and the
palms on the platform, was filled from side to side, and
the assiduous footman had to place chairs in the doorway
and out into the hall. The sibilant chatter subsided into
a reverent silence as the lecturer mounted the platform.
" Your Highness, your Grace — ladies and gentlemen."
This is an impressive opening, indeed ; but the lecturer —
modest man- makes nothing of it. He is used to it. We
all pretend we are used to it, also. " The subject for the
L.P.L.S. I
ii4 LONDON PRIDE AND LONDON SHAME.
day is ' Plato's Idea of the Relation of Body to' Spirit.' "
The speaker then tactfully explained that Plato, far from
being a difficult or an esoteric author, was in the habit
of directing his discourses to plain gentlemen, men of the
world, persons of affairs — like Glaucon or Ariston, says the
lecturer, carelessly. The inference is that we (like
Glaucon and Ariston) are wholly competent to apprehend
the sage. But it now appears that we are all "agitated
by problems." Are we? We don't look like it. True ;
but the English are a reserved nation.
We are all (proceeds the lecturer) agitated concerning
the problems of (say) education and — and, in fact, national
life. There is an immense, stolid, fresh-faced clergyman
who seems particularly gratified by this generous assump-
tion. The rest of the audience are merely rigid — respect-
fully rigid. As we are agitated, the lecturer goes on to
explain that Plato, rightly understood, may, in fact, will,
supply " a handle to the knife with which we may attack
the' concrete ' ' — which as satisfying, if obscure . The speaker
illustrates this point. Many quite ordinary ladies and
gentlemen, says he, can, and do, compose beautiful melo-
dies ; but " they can't put the bass." Only the great com-
poser can do that, it seems. Now, Plato puts the bass.
It is for us to put the melody. And there you are, all
complete. Life is now an intelligible business. Apply the
resultant composition to the problems that agitate, and they
will be resolved. ,(" You wouldn't," says Ernest in the
play, " have me eat muffins in an agitated manner? ")
■'■'• Now," demands the lecturer firmly, " what did Plato
say about matter? " Apparently he had no notion of the
value of matter. He disdained it. He said it was of secon-
dary importance. He said it was " low." He regarded
not the beauty of the female body — which, said the lecturer,
parenthetically, really was very beautiful — nor the
■'power " of the male body. Therefore we say to Plato,
" Now, look here, Plato, what is it that you really mean? "
Plato is understood to reply, in effect, that the most perfect
state will be that in which the philosopher is king, and the
CULTURE. 115
king philosopher. That remarkable utterance, said the lec-
turer, is Plato's great title to glory. Why? Because it
was a prophecy, fulfilled in the existence of the Roman
Catholic Church. This is a little startling, but no one is
startled. We are here to learn. The lecturer admitted
that the Catholic Church " was not quite perfect " — still,
it came as near perfection as might reasonably be expected
— a " very close rapprochement." Plato, we begin to
see, was a great man. He made nothing of demolishing
the theories of other philosophers. He " sneered " at the
"atoms of Democritus." "What," he says, "are your
atoms ? "
Still, we are to remember that the Greeks, despite Plato's
" disdain " of matter, had " an excessive bodily beauty."
The lecturer supported this statement by a quotation from
a Chinese encyclopaedia, and that point was clearly settled.
" Humanity," continued the speaker, " is infinitely superior
to anything else in nature— that, I am afraid, is true."
Why was he afraid ? We do not know, especially as the
lecturer went on to point out that " he is par excellence
spirit— not par excellence body." Somewhat inconsis-
tently, he proceeded to argue that, as matter did not exist,
or only, as it were, partially, we could not understand man,
because you cannot understand the non-existent. Still less,
it seems, can you understand a plant. The lecturer was
able to conceive it possible that someone, some day, might
understand Napoleon ; but no one would ever understand
the humble violet. These truths were forgotten in the last
century. A great wave of materialism swept over the
world. Huxley, Darwin, and Haeckel— to name but these
— were responsible for this disaster. There was even a
German scientist— the word itself was a " horrible neolo-
gism " — w ho sank so low as to affirm that " man is what
he is." The lecturer, it would seem, implied that if the
German scientist had said that man is what he is not, he
would hav<- had the authority of Plato at his learned back.
It was Plato, also, who inspired the early Christian Fathers
with their disdain, dislike, contempt, abhorrence, and dis-
I 2
1 1 6 LONDON PRIDE AND LONDON SHAME.
gust of the human body — even of the female human body,
which, said the lecturer, though the most beautiful of all
bodies, they regarded as " the taproot of evil."
•What we had now to do was to apply the Platonic teach-
ing — to make it a living thing. Let us apply it to the pro-
blems of the day. Let us apply it, for instance, to Christian
Science. The lecturer did so, at some length, and in the
upshot " Plato was seen to smile." Let us now apply it,
to (say) phrenology. Again we applied it in detail, and
again Plato was seen to smile, and he was also heard to
remark that since his time there had been mighty little
progress. Let us now apply the Platonic idea to the in-
fluence of climate on character. This would be a useful
subject for discussion. If climate was proved to affect
character, then matter acted on spirit, and — so it would
appear — the Platonic idea would be exploded. If not, not.
In other words, is matter existent, or non-existent?
The lecturer sat down, amid respectful applause. No
one seeming eager to begin the discussion, he rose again
to announce that, referring to some letters he had received,
he was glad to say that one lady was perfectly right in her
explanation of the existence of Shakespeare ; and another
in stating that in the case of expatriated persons, " the
universal acted upon them in a troubled medium." This
was eminently satisfactory ; and so encouraging that 'a'gen-
tleman with a foreign accent was moved to ask, " How
about French Canadians?" After some disjointed dis-
cussion — during which a gentleman who cried " Im-
perialism " was politely ignored — it appeared that French
Canadians were still French because they lived — so to
speak — with one another. Plato was vindicated, because the
climate had not caused them to forget their own language.
We then, by the same devious route, arrived at the con-
clusion that the negro, had precisely the same intellect as
the white man — climate again defeated, and Plato once
more triumphant. And so on, to the end.
Outside, the long array of motor-cars received their
occupants ; who, from out lordly mansions and great ease,
CULTURE. 117
had thus stepped down to get knowledge, and learn wisdom,
I say that such action denotes a beautiful humility. The
fact that they were in that room at all, implied that they
knew nothing, and knew that they knew it. And if that is
not humility, what is? " And so the vision fadeth I "
I 1 8 LONDON PRIDE AND LONDON SHAME.
XXI.— SPORT.
" Fools, they are the only nation
Worth men's envy or admiration ;
Free from care or sorrow -taking,
Selves and others merry-making."
TENS of thousands pouring steadily through the Palace
Station all day : artisans, miners, warehousemen, clerks,
shopmen, labourers, soldiers, sailors ; thousands blacken-
ing the green grass of the Palace grounds. This is not a
Bank holiday crowd. Nor does it carry along with it the
characteristics of a race gathering. It is a serious busi-
ness they are about to-day. It is the Cup -tie. If there is
anything more serious in life than sport is to the north-
countryman that thing has yet to be discovered. Among a
hundred thousand or more, there must needs be a few who
have taken their liquor unawares. I desire to be strictly
accurate. I saw only two. They were asleep under a fir
tree, and nothing but dynamite would have moved them.
I regret to add that they slept throughout the match which
they had travelled two or three hundred miles to see.
A vast amphitheatre, banked about with faces, solid, even
slopes of mottled pink, ringed with trees just flushed with
green, roofed with the grey and broken sky, and floored
with shaven turf — that is the picture. All between the ropes
and the lowest tier of seats is a moving mass of people.
The whole air is jagged with the north -country accent,
through which the strains of the band fitfully penetrate.
A pair of mountebanks come leaping through the crowd ;
the one in the black and white of Newcastle, with a pick
on his shoulder, the other in the blue and white of Everton,
and both twirling huge parti -coloured umbrellas. There
SPORT. 119
is something that utterly bewilders in the contemplation of
those still dark -pink watching hills of faces. It is remark-
able that no one person considers himself as a part of the
crowd. Each one instinctively, as it were, in self-defence,
clings to his identity. He thinks of himself as one unit ;
and of the crowd, deducting himself from it, as another
unit. But the most remarkable aspect of the immense
multitude is its universal good temper. We are all sports-
men to-day. Presently the whole multitude is seated, and
the space about the ropes is clear.
A — h — h ! A moment, and the level turf is sprinkled over
with powerful, lithe men in black-and-white striped shirts
and shirts of violet blue. The teams are on the ground.
A vast ripple spreads over the banked faces, upon which
extended umbrellas, white and blue and white and black,
suddenly appear like agitated mushrooms . There is a great
wave of cheering, suddenly subsiding as two of the oppos-
ing teams stand together in the centre of the ground and
toss for ends. Everton wins. ,The Everton team have
the wind and sun at their backs. The men scatter to their
places, and the contest has begun.
Thenceforward, to one unskilled in the points of the
game, the arena is a battlefield in which brawny men run to
and fro with astonishing swiftness, collide with an impact
that flings one head over heels to pick himself up like a cat,
and kick the ball in the act of rising ; in which the ball,
travelling through a high parabola, alights infallibly upon
a head placed precisely at the one spot in the universe, at
the one second of time at which ball and head could possi-
bly meet, and so bounds from head to head, the men leaping
four feet in air, the whole length of the field ; in which, of
two men racing madly side by side, one juggles the ball
from the other with the skill of a conjurer ; in which,
among men kicking their own height at a falling ball, one
receives a boot on the side of his head, and betrays not the
least emotion ; in which the ball, Hying into the goal from
out a whirling knot of legs and arms, is struck by the goal-
keeper over the bar behind him, and the audience roars,
120 LONDON PRIDE AND LONDON SHAME.
and the roar dies down, and from here and there a single
voice rings hoarsely, and silence falls as the game begins
again.
But to one who came to see the crowd as well as the
game — always with that singular snobbish reservation of
being in it, but not of it — what is most notable is not the
noise but the silence of the crowd. Those thousands and
thousands of eyes follow every shift and slightest incident
of the game. Those thousands and thousands of keen
sportsmen know each player and tell over his record and
reckon his capacities. He is their representative. He is
fighting for their town, and very likely for their money too,
but for their town before all. This is really not a gladia-
torial show, as many worthy persons ignorantly suppose,
but a display of intense local patriotism.. And these patriots
for the most part play the game themselves, or have played
it — not a doubt of that. True, the men who are fighting
for their respective towns are paid professionals, which is
a pity. But the point is, you could not maintain the finest
talent without paying for it. And now both sides are keep-
ing silence, bent on seeing that the game is played fairly
and without interruption. There have been exceptions, of
course, but the principle is there.
Half-time. No goal scored on either side. Everton men
gloomy because their chaps have not scored, though wind
and sun were in their favour ; Newcastle men sombre be-
cause their chaps have been hardly pressed. Once more.
Again the flying ball, the leaping men, the tremendous
kicking of the backs, with a sounding slap, and the ball
soaring nearly the length of the ground, a race on the
wings, a huddle of struggling men — a goal to Everton. The
banked crowd rises in long waves, and roars with a fusillade
of clapping, and as suddenly subsides into intense vigilance
as the game starts again. Another vast heaving of the
pink slopes, and another great noise — an interval of frantic
play on both sides — and Jhe whistle goes. All is done.
Everton has the Cup !
The banks disintegrate and flow down upon the level,
SPORT. 121
and close about the players, and the whole mass surges
upon the pavilion. A pause, a voice speaking, then a blue-
shirted man is hoisted aloft, holding up a great silver cup,
this way and that, and is again swallowed up amid cheer-
ing. " No doubt but the best team won it," said every-
body. Home again, hundreds of miles, victors and van-
quished alike imperturbably jovial. They went back, as
they came, singing or sound asleep.
Now, is there another country can show the like ? And
if we can do these things for our towns — and grim, oppres-
sive, murky, grinding towns they are — cannot we do the
like for the larger issue ? Football is a fine sport, no doubt ;
but one must needs reflect that it would be even finer if the
professional element were abolished, and that the thousands
of pounds which are yearly expended in maintaining the
professional games' clubs might be used in a better game
still. What are the lads waiting for? Do they want a
better lead than Lord Roberts has given them ?
122 LONDON PRIDE AND LONDON SHAME.
XXII.— THE YACHT RACE.
" But for all I have given thee, beauty enough is thine,
As thou, aslant with trim tackle and shrouding,
From the proud nostril curve of a prow's line
In the offing scatterest foam, thy white sails crowding."
" Up mainsail ! " The group of men about the mast
bend and haul together. " Aho ! Aha ! Walk her up !
Aho ! Aha ! " The vast expanse of canvas rises majesti-
cally from the boom, fold upon fold, the topman standing
on the gaff, and rising with it, until the great sail fills the
whole prospect, and the topman, high in air, swings agile
as a monkey amid the intricacy of ropes. This is the day
of the great race, and the first-class racing cutter is putting
to sea.
The captain, a spare, bearded figure, with deep -set eyes,
brooding yet vigilant, glowing under tufted eyebrows,
stands beside the wheel, contemplating the sailors that
hurry among the litter of sails and cordage, with a superb
composure. Up goes the jackyard, the huge sail fitting
fanwise between the top of the mainsail and the topmast.
Its yard needs four men to lift it ; but when it is hoisted,
and set a hundred and twenty odd feet from the deck, it
looks little and delicate like a toy. The foresail is broken
out, the stops, the light cords that bind the furled sail,
snapped and flying into the air. The yacht begins to travel
smoothly down the tide towards the mouth of the river.
On either hand, and astern, other racing vessels are shaking
out their sails, or gliding beneath a pyramid of canvas.
The sky to windward clears to a clean blue as the piled
wrack is blown away, and the nearer shore is mistily
illumined. The radiance broadens, until the sailing boats,
THE YACHT RACE. 123
far and near, are turned to ships of pearl, and the broad
water flashes in full sunshine. The shores recede and grow
dim, and a tang of open water stings the nostrils. Ahead,
a squat, red lightship is rolling slightly on the long swell,
and away to the right the committee steamer lies waiting.
Between the two vessels is drawn the imaginary line from
which the race must start.
The full -sailed boats hover uneasily near, like moths
about a candle ; drawing nearer, shooting back, crossing
and re -crossing. Our two rivals are now on this side, now
on that. Now one crosses our bows ; again, we sheer
alongside another . She rounds the lightship and goes about .
Then we round the lightship and go about. The crowd
of lesser craft, which sail in the second race, are gliding
hither and thither a little way off. It is a matter of minutes
before the starting gun. We round the lightship again,
and glide within the line. The captain swiftly turns the
wheel : there is a sudden swerve, a shouting of orders, a
rushing of men to the ropes — a frenzied endeavour on the
part of the spectators to see everything at once — the muffled
detonation of a gun. We are off !
One of the rival boats draws a little ahead ; the other
keeps much on a level. All are running free, with spin-
nakers set, so that each has a vast wing stretched on either
side. The blustering wind of the early morning has
slackened, and the sun burns in an unclouded sky. The
yacht slips along through the beaded, coiling water in a
silence that is stirred only by the tapping of a wire rope
against the hollow steel boom. The hands lie crouched
on either side the deck, ready to the ropes. The owner
and his guests repose right astern, behind the wheel. Now
and again the captain shouts an order, and the recumbent
Ballon leap instantly to action, and again subside.
The yacht sailing on the beam moves upon a column of
light that is interfused with her darker reflection. Against
the sunshine and the hot, bright sky her curving sails are
hued grain -yellow, merging into coloured shadows as of
ameth) t and sapphire, glimmering with lights of mellow
124 LONDON PRIDE AND LONDON SHAME.
gold. Astern, the smaller vessels are spread in a wide arc
upon a shimmering brightness of sea and sky, like moving
pavilions, whose billowing folds are delicately washed in
tinctures of shining grey and silver, and the opalescence of
the sparkling sea ; and, beyond, the sky is veiled in wisps
of fleecy lawn. So, we speed imperceptibly, and yet seem
motionless, suspended in a dream.
But the sea -levels are suddenly roughened, and a cool
air blows, and the sunlight dims, and the great sails are
hauled in a little. One of our rivals has glided further
ahead ; the other hangs on the port beam for a while, then
she also forges ahead. The leading vessel rounds a light-
ship and sweeps away, her tall canvas shape, pointed like a
sword, leaning far over. Several minutes later, we round
the tossing red vessel, with the wire-covered globes atop
of her masts, and — in the memory it seems but a moment —
we are beating up against a head wind and a rising sea.
The sheets are hauled taut, and the boat heels over, until
the water foams along the rail, and you cannot sit on the
deck without sliding, unless you get a hold. The men are
all lying up to windward, their heads level with the low rail.
Lying thus on your back, the eye travels up and up the
great expanse of canvas, that cuts so clean a line upon the
blue, and it is like surveying a wide field as you sit against
the hedge. As the wind strengthens, the topmast quivers
ever so little, a noise like thunder rattles in the foresail,
and now and again the sea strikes the bows, a heavy
vibrating blow, and spray flies over the slanting decks.
The mate, crouching forward, attentive to the jibsheets,
never turns his head or moves when a sea breaks over him.
He sits imperturbable and visibly dripping.
And now remark the captain, who is in sole command of
the intricate machine of steel and wood and canvas,
launched and flying amid a riot of wind and sea. Leaning
forward upon a knee, braced upon a leg to the cant of the
streaming deck, his face is quiet like a picture, as he
handles the wheel.
So we forge along, hour after hour, through the hissing
THE VAC I IT RACE. * 125
seas. Now and again a jib-topsail is lowered, and an-
other is hoisted in its place and sheeted home. " Aho-aha I
Walk her in, boys ! All together ! " Now and again the
captain shouts an order, and the prone, wet men scramble
to the ropes. " Up to wind'ard again, sonnies — up to
wind'ard," says the captain ; and once more they lie in a
row against the rail. And at intervals : " Lee — O I " the
furious hauling at the ropes, the swift turn of the vessel,
the cascading water, and again the rail rushing under
through leaping seas. And all the time, save when he
lends a hand, the owner lies up to windward against the rail,
wet, bareheaded, serenely happy.
Sometimes the yacht ahead seems to be nearer, some-
times further away ; while the other boat now overhauls
us, and again passes close astern as she goes about on the
other tack, showing her red undcrbody like a wallowing
fish, as she heels far over. She is racing neck and neck
with us ; and so, for the matter of that, is the leading
boat, for she has to give a time allowance. As for the
smaller boats of the second race, they are left behind and
lost to sight in the driving spume.
It is late afternoon, and the long curve of the weather
rail darkens upon a wild sunset, shot with flying gleams of
sunlight. " Lee — O ! " Round she goes, and there are
the shining field of angry sea, flecked with white, and the
clustered town upon the dim foreland, and far ahead, the
tall spectre of the leading yacht, swift flitting into twilight.
She rounds the last lightship and is gone.
The vague bulk of coast upon the starboard hand slides
past, and beyond the foreland glimmer white scarps of cliff.
A sailor, knee - deep in water, heaves the lead, deftly
swinging the weight forward. Another hand, kneeling
beside the shrouds, catrhes the line as it is dragged astern,
He checks it, and hauls it in. He has a fresh pink face, his
fair hair plastered wet on his forehead, and one eye that
teems ever to be taking aim at something, while the other
is halt shut. " Quarter less live," he sings.
I ee — O," calls the captain. The leadsman chucks the
126 LONDON PRIDE AND LONDON SHAME.
line across the deck as it tips up, and the owner, sliding
across to take a hand on the jib -sheets, slips on the line,
and slides half overboard, the rushing torrent taking him to
the knees . He catches at the fore - sheet and saves
himself.
If any one must fall overboard, the owner had best be
that person, since the rules compel the captain to stop, if
a man fall overboard, and to try to pick him up. The delay
would lose the race, or, at any rate, spoil it. There was
once a captain who warned his owner to be careful where
he sat. The owner disregarded that counsel, and toppled
overboard. The captain shouted to the vessel next astern
to pick that silly person up as — said he — for himself, he
had no time to stop .
It is a question of two or three minutes, now. The
leading ship must have passed the line. Our other rival
is tacking level with us. Yonder is the last lightship. We
cannot reach her with what is, I believe, called a long leg
— we must tack again, and yet again. It is deep water close
under the scarred white cliffs, and we sweep inwards till
the little stones on the beach are plain to see, and then we
go about.
The captain, still wholly imperturbable, glances aloft,
glances ahead. Can he fetch the lightship next time he
goes about ? If he can, he will gain on our rival, who
must make another tack. " Lee — O ! " Round she goes,
and over she heels, till the water boils half-way up the
deck. The lightship rushes nearer and nearer — we can
round her — here she is ! Her square stern is bobbing
within a few feet of the sail, and a group of men is seen
for a passing moment. They are all shouting. "Fourteen
minutes ! " The leading ship passed fourteen minutes ago.
We are that space of time behind. But, according to the
time allowance, we have three or four minutes in hand.
The other craft is safely astern .
A long leg, a short leg, another long leg, and there is the
mark -boat. Round we go, and the gun booms. Instantly
the yacht rises and poises herself upon a nearly even keel,
THE YACHT RACE. 127
like a creature at last released from an intolerable strain.
So, we glide into the harbour, where lies the leading vessel,
her masts already bare, the men snugging the sails.
The race had lasted nearly eight hours. For between
nine and ten hours the captain had not quitted the wheel,
save for two or three minutes at a time. The anchor down,
he walks forward, his face sharpened and set, his eyes,
red-rimmed, retired deep into his head, but wholly im-
perturbable still. He has won a hard race of over fifty
miles by two minutes and a fraction.
128 LONDON PRIDE AND LONDON SHAME.
XXIII.— MARGATE.
" Nor can it touch but of arrogant ignorance, to hold this or that
nation barbarous, these or those times gross, considering how this
manifold creature,' man, wheresoever he stand in the world, hath
always some disposition of worth, entertains and affects that order
of society which is best for his use, and is eminent for some one
thing or other that fits his humour and the times."
It is the Saturday before Bank Holiday, and all the
world is moving out. The two big steamers below London
Bridge are crammed, from rail to rail, with a speckled mass
of humanity and luggage. It is not yet nine o'clock, when
they cast off ; but the steep ways leading down to the pier
between tall warehouses are littered with people who cannot
get aboard. They sit resignedly on portmanteaus, and feed
their children out of paper bags, waiting on events . They
are bound for Margate, and goodness knows when they
will get there. So brief a holiday, and the hours already
slipping away, and here they are — a pathetic spectacle.
Down at Margate, there are hundreds of happy, bare-
legged children playing on the sand. Scores of family
groups are assembled there, among the bathing-machines
and the donkeys, and the men in white caps selling eatables.
The esplanade runs left and right, and there, sparkling in
the broad sunlight, are the curved stone jetty and the little
lighthouse, and the cliff rising beyond. There is a strong
tendency to saunter, hatless, and arm-in-arm with a friend
or two, up and down the esplanade. Having bathed, there
is nothing else to do whatever, except to have your photo-
graph taken, for which achievement an artist is available
every three or four yards. But, then, no one wants to do
anything else. Here are sun and air and society, and —
above all — freedom from London.
.MARGATE. 129
A cloud glooms above the cliff ; the sun is blotted out ;
and there is a violent rush of rain. Inside three minutes
the sands are swept clear, save for deserted chairs. One
solitary man is left conspicuous. He was dressing his small
boy, who had been bathing, when the rain plumped upon
them. A forlorn and streaming figure, he is desperately
striving to clothe the child and dry him, and to use a
hammock chair as an umbrella, all at once. Then the sun
shines out, and cheerful people with clinging garments
paddle home to lunch.
The steamer from London is late. The pier-head is
crowded with people awaiting their relatives, and with other
people whose holiday is done, and who must steam away
home again. Here are mothers of families, with bags and
bundles and more children than one can count ; portentous,
knock-kneed youths in knickerbockers ; cheerful young
women who sit on a rail and swing high -heeled shoes, the
while they converse with elegant young men ; and the
inevitable, red-faced, elderly gentleman morosely smoking
a cigar encircled by a gilt paper band.
The steamer draws alongside, and every one presses to
the railings at the pier-head.
" Where's father? I don't see father."
" He's setting down, most prob'ly. Trust father to make
himself comfortable. Why, there he is I And uncle I "
Shrill cries of greeting, and jfrantic waving to indistin-
guishable figures in the dense crowd aboard.
The holiday people surge slowly up the steps and mingle
with the multitude, the while the homeward - bound
voyagers struggle down other steps, laden with bags and
bundles and boxes and children. They have been waiting
for two hours ; they have had no lunch ; they are harassed
and encumbered and crowded ; yet all are perfectly good
humoured.
" Where's our Johnny? There he is with mother. All
ri^ht, Johnny. Jenny, you keep with auntie. Give me
oik- of tin hi bags, and I'll carry the child, too."
L.P.L.S. K
130 LONDON PRIDE AND LONDON SHAME.
Johnny and Jenny are lost among a forest of legs, pushed
and hustled and trampled on, despite all precaution . Johnny,
attired in a blue plush suit and a white falling collar, is
hoisted on a friendly shoulder, while his grandmother holds
her own in front. She is a brown, sturdy old lady, and she
carries a bag of incredible weight, without apparent dis-
tress. Her married daughter follows, carrying Jenny, three
bags, and a paper parcel. Then comes auntie, carrying
another child, leading a fourth, and also laden to the dust
with luggage. The courage and endurance of the family is
amazing. No cabs for them . When they travel, they carry
the whole of their possessions. Aboard the boat, they en-
camp on a seat, and immediately begin to partake of the
refreshments which are contained in the paper bags . Nearly
every one is eating out ,of paper bags. The mere fact of
sitting on the deck of a steamer seems to excite their
appetite. Besides, eating keeps the children quiet.
The boat casts off, and happy Margate, with its huddled
houses and bright, crowded sands and white -painted pier,
slides astern. We are a quiet assembly on board to-day,
partly because there are very few young men among the
passengers, and partly because our holidays are done.
The stout old gentleman sitting to windward ties a silk
handkerchief over his old wife's head, and wraps her in a
fur jacket. She peers mournfully through spectacles from
under the handkerchief. I think this couple are French.
The old boy sits hatless until his bald head cannot bear the
sun and spray any longer, when he ties knots in his hand-
kerchief and makes a cap of it, a loose end tickling his
nose. He grins, lights a pipe, and settles himself for the
afternoon .
There is an innocent, wholesome pair of young lovers
who have escaped from relatives to a place apart. He is
stealthily holding her hand, the while she insensibly leans
upon him. He is a fair - haired, square - faced boy of
eighteen or twenty ; she, a pretty, graceful creature, with
a pleasant, kind face. The trouble of these two is that the
MARGATE. 131
rest of the party will come and talk to them. There are
another girl, slender and black-haired and cheery, and two
younger maidens. One or other is always running up to
the lovers. They watch their chance and slip away to
another resting-place. They are not annoyed — they are
much too good-natured and too fond of the others to be
angry. But they get no peace until one of the little girls
turns a dreadful yellow, and collapses upon her black-
haired sister's shoulder.
" She's always like that," says the black - haired one,
cheerfully. " She's like it in a train — just as bad."
What is that large pink disk resting upright on the end
of the bench yonder? It is the bald head of a stout gen-
tleman who has fallen sound asleep, end-on to the specta-
tor. Opposite to him, lying side by side on a luggage
trolley, are an elderly lady and gentleman, also slumber-
ing, their upturned faces scorching in the sun to a lively
crimson.
Sitting to leeward, on a trunk, is a lady who, in some
indefinable respect, differs singularly from her surround-
ings. She has a thin, aquiline face, touched by the sun,
and a quantity of light hair, much streaked with grey. Her
blue eyes have a curious, intent look, that is fixed for a
moment or two, and then suddenly glances away. Her
dress is of some floating light material, conveying a general
impression of loose ends and frills. One of the men in the
service of the company that owns the boat, who is shifting
luggage, bangs down a box close beside the lady. " Mind
your face, my girl," says this refined official to the poor,
startled woman. She glances about her with that scared
look, and takes refuge in a corner beneath the bridge. Who
is she? What is she? We shall never know. Life is but
a game of hide-and-seek.
Off the starboard bow lies the red lightship of the Nore,
and the low hills close in on either hand. Cargo-boats,
black -hulled to the water-line, and red -sailed barges are
coming down with the tide. We are in the river now, the
K 2
132 LONDON PRIDE AND LONDON SHAME.
wide waterway that leads into the heart of the immense
wilderness of London. Astern, the lucent water ripples
into a great, dim field of sea, speckled here and there with
ships, and a whitening glint of sails. Ahead, the black
figure of a schooner under full sail is graven upon a shining
mist, or vapour, that drifts across a radiance of gold. The
low shore, meadow and tree and red -roofed barn, lie bathed
in that transparent effulgence of the declining sun. Nearer
hand, a little yacht slides past, and the broad water is set
with tiny sails . So peaceful is this silent avenue to the dark
and roaring city, this gentle flood shining and bubbling
between the solitary expanse of fields, all bathed in a be-
nignant amplitude of light, lulled into a profound serenity.
But the town draws nearer and nearer. The light insen-
sibly darkens. The sleepers on deck awake, and get to
their feet, and blink at the prospect. Here is Tilbury, the
pier a solid mass of waiting passengers. Now for the be-
ginning of strife.
Grandmother clutched Johnny, a friendly man took her
bag — it bowed him to the ground — mother took Jenny and
an incredible weight of baggage, auntie took the rest. So,
through the crowd, and along the roofed passage, "to the
train for London. The ticket collector told each person,
as he struggled past, not to get into the train. No one
knows why. Probably the ticket man, in the stress of
crowds, had lost his reason — and small wonder . The
friendly man, by extraordinary exertions, conveyed the
grandmother to a carriage. She was about to enter, when
a huge, filthy, hulking brute of a workman shoved her
aside. The friendly man lost his temper. He collared
the brute, who only saved himself from being flung on his
back by catching at the framework of the carriage.
"■ Who are you a -clawing of ? " he demanded, with fury.
^ I'll teach you to come a -clawing of me I "
" Come out, and I'll teach you manners," said his
assailant, who was busy packing grandmother and the rest
into the next carriage. But, sad to say, the other declined
MARGATE. » 133
the invitation, and another opportunity for teaching a little
common civility was lost for ever.
In an adjoining carriage, a thin lady, with a flushed face,
was in a high state of indignation. " I don't know if my
luggage is in or not," she said. " Let them not put it in —
that's all I I'll sue them, I will ! I'll get every penny
back, same as I did from the South -Western. Look at the
way we've been treated I Waiting two hours on the pier,
and never had the decency to tell us the boat would be late,
so that we could get a bit pf lunch, and then hustled and
crowded, and no one to say where we were to go — I call it
disgraceful. I shall write to the papers. "
A weary man in the corner hazarded an observation to
the effect " they was treating people all of a pack, like,
being so crowded."
" Never no more steamers for me," said the lady ; " such
treatment I never saw and will not stand. I was feeling so
unwell I had to go down into the saloon and drink a glass
of brandy and lay down. That reminds me — I never read
the paper, though I bought it."
She waxed confidential over some mysterious transac-
tions connected with tram tickets. Each one began to talk
at once.
A little girl sitting beside the wayfarer looked up at him
and smiled. " What funny people these elders are I " That
was what she was thinking. Her round freckled face, and
clear blue eyes, and little white teeth, and her artless
chatter, refreshed like a charm.
" Yes, we've been a fortnight at Margate, and I don't
much mind going home ; not very much. We don't live
in London ; we live at Purfleet. In the street where the
big clock is — you know. I've got five weeks more holiday.
I have ! Seven weeks altogether — isn't it a long time ? I
don't mind school. I like it. There's not only lessons,
ordinary 1' , you know, but we learn about bot'ny, and
in < ■< ts, and flower, and frogs — awfully int 'resting. I learn
dancing, too."
134 LONDON PRIDE AND LONDON SHAME.
Her mother, a tall, prim lady with a frosty grey eye,
peered nervously round the elbow of the seat, but she did
not arrest our little conversation. Presently the two got
out, and vanished in the thickening twilight.
A long bright bar of sunset shone beyond the appalling
desert of East -end degradation, as the train crawled across
the roofs. The net was closing in upon us, and the night
was falling.
THE GENERAL. 135
XXIV.— THE GENERAL.
" He's called the General from the dash and craft
And skill with which he sneaks a bit of road."
The driver, rolling leisurely out of the yard, appeared
to consider his boots with a scrupulous attention. He
was a fresh - faced man, of a portly habit. He wore
a dust - coloured coat with pearl buttons, and his hat
was slightly tilted over one eye. He settled himself de-
liberately into his wrappings with the air of one doggedly
competent to face the world.
" I've never cleaned my own boots since I was married,"
he observed, i{ and that's seventeen years ago. There's the
advantage of a good wife. My wife, she's first-class. Nor
I don't see as why I should clean my own boots, neither.
I ain't got time. Home about midnight, and out again
by seven in the morning — that's it. That don't leave a
man much time at home, do it ? I should think not.
There's passengers of mine what rides with me first thing
in the morning, like it might be now, and when they sees
me again the last thing at night — why, they think as I've
had a rest in between. They never think as it's the
same man all the time, you see. Ah, there ain't no trade
what works longer hours than what we 'bus men do. Why
do men take up the job, you'd wonder? Well, there's
many youngsters whose 'ole ambition it is to sit up aloft
and drive a pair of horses, and dress in a smart coat with
big buttons, and a flower in the buttonhole and a top 'at.
That's the finest thin;' in life, they think. I thought so
once. ..." Here a rival omnibus sheered alongside out
of the roaring press of trafii< and tried to pass us. The
136 LONDON PRIDE AND LONDON SHAME.
rival conductor, swaying on his little platform just below,
looked up at our driver with his lower lip thrust out.
"You'd ought to give up trying to drive," he shouted.
" Take to selling penny buttonholes on Ludgate-hill
again. You know — penny buttonholes ! " An emphatic
pantomime, with his upturned thumb upon the lapel of his
faded blue coat, illustrated this kindly counsel . " All day
long on the kerb — that's what you want. You're lost up
there on a box."
" What about the shoeblack opposite the Mansion
House? " retorted our driver, with one eye on his galloping
horses and the other on the conductor, who continued to
hurl the same insults. "What about 'im ? Go back
there. Go back to the old trade, what you understand.
Shine, sir, shine? Go back."
The two huge vehicles surged together, missing collision
by an inch or two. Our man gained a little, and came
abreast of the other driver.
I'm as good a coachman as what you are," says our
driver, as we passed the other.
" But there's nothing like the fresh air," he continued,
placidly. " It gives a man a relish for his food. Now,
I can put in five good meals a day, and ask for more.
First, there's the breakfast I has before I starts. My wife,
she gives me that — not much, you know, just three or four
rashers of bacon and thick slices of bread, and a pot of
tea. Then I has what I call my second breakfast when we
gets into the yard about eleven, just a bit of bread and
cheese, or sausage, or what not, and a cup of cofifee. That
has to last me till two o'clock or so, when I has my dinner.
There's a cookshop handy to the yard, where I gets a plate
of meat, or a beefsteak pudding — something solid, anyway.
The trouble with a cookshop is that they're so shy of giving
second helps. That's why I likes my meals at home, or
to bring the grub along with me, but it ain't always con-
venient. Then, as for tea, that comes along about five —
bread and butter, and a matter of two or three eggs, or a
haddock or so. And generally I seem to want another
THE GENERAL. 137
tea about seven o'clock, too. A man must be fed, I say.
No use in starvation when you're a-working hard. And
when I gets home there's supper. Last night it was beef-
steak. Not that I has beef -teak every night. But last
night my brother came in, and he says to me, ' Bill,' he
says, ' let's have a steak.' ' Right,' I says, and we put away
two pound and a half between us. I was telling an old
lady friend of mine what I'm telling you, ' and Lord help
your poor stomach.' she says. ' Don't you worry about
that,' I says, ' me and my stomach understands each
other.'
' But it's expensive, is an appetite, I'll allow. What
with rent and insurance, there ain't much to spare out of a
man's wages. Eight and six a week rent and two shillings
insurance — that's ten and six gone. What I look at is
what's to become of the old woman when I'm dead, or laid
up, or something. So I keeps up my insurance. You see,
we lost our children — lost two in a fortnight. Diphtheria.
And I was out of a job at the time, and lost some insurance
money, for I dropped behind in my payments. I thought
I should have lost my wife too. She wasted away to a
shadow, and couldn't eat nothing. ' It's all very well for
you,' — she used to say. ' You goes out all day ; I've got to
stop at home, an' nothing to do but think.' She was right,
I reckon. But she pulled round."
A huge motor-omnibus came clanking round the corner,
and my friend drew his vehicle right across its path. The
motor-driver slowed up within a (inger's-breadth of the tail
of our omnibus. Neither of the drivers said a word, or
altered a line of his face.
As for them motor-omnibuses," resumed our driver,
he whipped up his docile horses, " they're things of the
pa They'll be a taking them all off the roads in a year's
tin. Look at the expen e of the wear and tear. They
only an experiment from the first. Now, with hoi 1 ,
you know where you a: J hey may be .slow, but they
they always goe . do hoi es. Some of our coach
men they took on the job of driving — poor fellows !
138 LONDON PRIDE AND LONDON SHAME.
They're abs'lutely starved with the bitter cold and shook
all to pieces. There's a friend of mine what drove a motor-
omnibus for six months and turned it up. I met him in
the street, and I says, s Why, Joe, you've got the paralytic
trembles.' For he was all of a shiver, like, and couldn't
keep still. - No more of that there for me,' he says.
' Give me horses,' he says, ' in the future.' And that's
what I says too. Why, they fines the poor fellows if the
blooming machinery breaks down, what they never taught
'em how to manage but only to drive. And there he is
a-picking and a-hammering at the roadside, and knowing
as he's losing money the 'ole time. They've got no strong
union, you see. Nor they ain't likely to have ; what with
the motor drivers leaving private service to take on with the
companies. Oh, yes, there's a many of them do that. In
private service, they says, their work's never done. But
on the road they've got their ten hours' driving, and the
engineers do the rest. But the 'ole thing's just a fashion,
as I was saying. They'll come back to horses, and a good
job too. There's nothing better."-
He edged into a jam of traffic, and pulled up.
The thin mist that clung about the haggard streets was
suddenly disparted as a strong gleam of sun smote upon the
block of vehicles. The bright hues of an omnibus, the
glossy backs of the horses shone for a moment amid the
press of huge motor-vans, steam trollies, staid black
electric broughams, and swaggering red-cushioned, brass -
bound automobiles. A moment, and the horses and their
obsolete vehicle and their sturdy, clever driver were lost
to sight.
IMPERIALISM. 139
XXV.— IMPERIALISM.
' To most men argument makes the point in hand more doubtful
and considerably less impressive."
Mr. BURGESS owns one of those discreetly retired shops
(which we all know) wherein the only tobacco, the only
cigar, and the only cigarette worth smoking may be pur-
chased by the judicious. Similarly, there is only one
Burgess.
" Town's very empty," observed Mr. Twells, the portly
Bond Street jeweller, affably. He seated himself on the
tobacco barrel, while Mr. Burgess filled his gold-rimmed,
tortoise-shell snuffbox.
"Empty?" said Mr. Burgess. " What, ain't the Colonial
Premiers here ? Call yourself an imperialist, or what ? "
" Imperialism," returned Mr. Twells, with chill finality,
" has never done us any good, I can tell you that."
1 You talk like as if it was a dose of salts," said Mr.
Burgess, with a fat chuckle.
'" I mean," continued Mr. Twells, majestically disre-
garding the suggestion, " that what we call the one-to-fifty-
pound trade has gone, practically gone, sir, since the war.
Every one's saying the same. (Not that it affects me, of
course.) But I forgot," added Mr. Twells. "You're half
a Colonial yourself, Mr. Burgess."
" Not me," said the stout tobacconist. " I'm a British
subject, I am. And Colonial ain't a popular word over
der, let me tell you. When you goes a -travelling in the
King's dominions, you take and keep that there name
buttoned up inside your new waistco.it, Mr. Twells, that's
my advice to you. Yes, I been in the Colonies — and I come
back. As you see. Livin' good and cheap, too. Yes,
140 LONDON PRIDE AND LONDON SHAME.
me and the missis, we went out West. I worked on a farm,
d'ye see. Cottage rent-free, and a bit of garden, a cow,
and as much poultry as you like. Pigs, too. Use of a
horse and buggy when you wanted to go to town. Treated
us well, too, our employers did. But I couldn't stick it.
I saved a hundred and fifty dollars, and ' I must go home,'
I says. They offered me a bit o' land — good land, too —
at a low price if I'd stay. 4 Not if you was to take and give
it me for nothing I wouldn't. I'm a-going home,' I says.
But it's a good country, I don't deny."
" Didn't you like the work? " asked Mr. Twells.
" No, I didn't," replied Mr. Burgess, with decision.
" Work ! I never see such work in all my life. Up at sun-
rise, at it all day till dark, and hard, mind you. No mistake
about that . But it wasn't the work, and it wasn't the people .
It was somethin' else," said Mr. Burgess, impressively.
"• Why," he went on, " I used to find myself out all alone
in a vast big field, or in the forest chopping wood and not
a soul to speak to for hours and hours. Lonely ? Might as
well 'a been a insect."
" Ah ! " said Mr. Twells, taking snuff. -" So that's your
Imperialism? "'
"No, don't you run away with that idea," said Mr.
Burgess. "You don't know, because you haven't seen.
I have. I been most all over the world, in my time. I
was in the war, too — can't say I fought, for we marched a
thousand miles and never v see a enemy. Now, I don't know
what your politics are "
" I have none," said Mr. Twells, with dignity. " I'm
what I call independent. I have never voted for either
side, and I never will."
" Well, I don't go so far as that," Mr. Burgess rejoined.
' But, as I was saying, if this here Imperial Conference had
come on before the war, things would 'a been very differ-
ent. The Government's ignorant, that's where it is.
Ignorant. They don't know what they're doing, not half
the time. I can't say why it is, I'm sure. I only sees the
fact. They're paid for their job, too. I know there's
IMPERIALISM. 141
some that says this country's run by the Press. But it's
run by the Government. When the Press pulls all one way,
like it did in the war-time, exceptin' one or two papers, the
Press shoves the Government along. But most of the time
the papers is pulling all ways to once. Take this here
Colonial Conference. What did the last Government do?
Come along, says Mr. Chamberlain, let's have a British
Empire as is a Empire. Right you are, says the Premiers,
you're a sportsman. And they come. They passed a lot
of resolutions as would 'a made a Empire out of a ash-
heap, by what I can see of it. And what did the
Government do ? Pleased to see you, Mr. Premiers, says
Mr. Balfour. D'you play golf? No? W T hat a pity ! You
should 'a begun young, like me. Well, so-long, he says,
I've got to play a foursome, and my motor-car's blockin'
the way. Sorry you can't stop, he says.
" As for the Radicals, of course they didn't raise no
objections. No place like home, they says. Now we'll
take everything from everybody that's worth robbin', divide
it among ourselves, and start fresh. As for the Empire,
that's off, they says. That's me, every time, says C.-B.,
and in he comes, a pick-a-back on a pore slave of a China-
man. Now we'll have another Conference, he says, just
to show there's no ill-feeling. Of course we ain't a-going
to give you anything you want, he says. You can't surely
expect it. But charmed to see you, any time. Telephone
the Hotel Cecil, he says, and the car'll meet you at
Waterloo."
" Ah," said Mr. Twells, " you're quite right, Mr.
Burgess. A customer came into my shop only the other
day, and he said, ' What we want is the Kaiser over bere
—just like that."
" The Emperor William, he's a gentleman, he is," said
Mr. Burgess. " He'd be gratified to meet your friend, DO
doubt, but I expect he'd say his own job took all his span-
as it i->. No, I doubt we'll have to mm: ;■!<■ aloi we
are, Mr. Twells, a-tryingto make a silk purse out of a sow's
ear, as the saying is. That's what the newspapi (s at— ■
142 LONDON PRIDE AND LONDON SHAME.
day and night they're at it, twenty different ways, too.
I'm a great reader of newspapers, myself — that's partly why
I come home. I'm interested in politics, and there's no
politics on the prairie — nothing but a gashly emptiness,
like wanting your dinner. But bless my soul alive I when
it comes to the Colonial Conference, they're all abroad,
the papers is. There's two or three, I don't deny, what's
got the hang of the thing, and that'll do good. I dessay
you know the ones I mean. But as for the rest, they're all
afraid. Goodness knows what they're afraid of 1 I only
know they're trem'lous. The editor's lived in a office all
his life, I suppose, and so he don't know what his sub-
scribers are like. He thinks they're all like editors, with
one eye on a gilt-edged invitation-card a-stuck in the look-
ing-glass, and the other on the proprietor. But the public's
like you and me, Mr. Twells. We got our living to earn,
and we sees that what's called the British Empire is a big
bit of unrealised estate, a-crying out for development, and
a-running to waste all the time.
" Now, what does the papers say ? Two or three, as I've
always said, tells us to go and take hold right along — and
I'll lay a dollar the men that runs them papers has been and
seen. But the rest — be careful, they says. Don't hurry —
don't do nothing rash. It'll take years and years, they
says, before we can think of making arrangements . Years
of '■ spade-work,' one of them says, as solemn as you please,
and I suppose the man what wrote them words knew what
he meant when he did it — I don't. And some of 'em is so
busy a-stickin' stamp-paper over the cracks in the tumble-
down, rat - rid, insanitary old warehouse they call Free
Trade, they can't spare a thought. Free Trade I I took
blessed good care, when I went into business, to take up a
trade which was protected, I can assure you.' 1
'- 1 don't blame you," said Mr. Twells, getting off his
barrel. "And talking of business, I must get back to
mine."
" That's what it comes to, don't it? " said Mr. Burgess,
cheerfully. "That's what it comes to, all the time."
MR. BETTERMAN. 143
XXVI.— MR. BETTERMAN.
"'Tis not in folly not to scorn a fool,
And scarce in human wisdom to do more."
WE will call him Mr. Betterman, after the example of
the late John Bunyan, who labelled his characters accord-
ing to the particular kind of temperament they were
designed to represent. The author of " The Pilgrim's
Progress " had no single personage in his eye ; it was the
type that — after the fashion of the Old Morality plays with
which he was familiar — he aimed to portray. We also,
in our humble way, have it in mind to depict a type, in
the hope of arriving at a better understanding of the indi-
viduals of which it is composed.
The type, then, we have christened Betterman, because
the principle upon which he seems to order his life is that
of being better than other people. I say seems — who am
I, to judge another? It will be seen presently that the
theory is formed by process of induction. The desire
not only to seem better, but to be better than other men
is the only hypothesis which appears to explain the phe-
nomena. There may, of course, be another hypothesis
which has not yet been discovered.
But here, we must distinguish. The desire to be better
than other people must not be confused with the desire to
be good. Goodness — what the philosopher calls *' good in
if " — is a positive thing ; we arc most of us in agreement
.1 to its nature ; and we most of us desire it. But Mr.
Betterman'fl object is relative. He merely wants to be
better than his fellow . He is not greatly concerned to
>W if they are right Of wrong in any given CS < . With
144 LONDON PRIDE AND LONDON SHAME.
him, it is not a question of a common allegiance to virtue,
but of his own individual superiority. At this point, it is
fair to say that Mr. Betterman is probably unconscious of
the quality of his master motive. He very likely believes
that he is humbly striving to be merely good, like the rest
of us.
Now, how did Mr. Betterman come to be what he is?
Did he, in his very cradle, roll an anxious eye upon his
little brothers and sisters, and calculate in his infant mind
how a baby might point a moral to their noisy behaviour ?
We shall never know. It is probable, however, that a solid
comfort was his portion from his earliest years.
His father, Shut -Eye Betterman, was a man of consider-
able possessions, employing large numbers of men, women,
and children. Shut -Eye Betterman remembered the good
old days when the mill -owners used to import children of
six years old from the workhouses, and force them to toil
for thirteen hours daily, by the use of the lash and other
forms of torture ; and when the dead used to be buried at
night, to avoid unnecessary remark. But the worthy old
gentleman never recounted these circumstances to
Betterman junior ; who, perhaps, remains in ignorance of
them to this day.
Shut -Eye married Gentility Toogood. Ller father was
a preacher of some local renown. It could never be said
that Betterman senior married for money. Nor could it
be contended by the envious that the well-to-do mill -owner
gained any social advantage by his marriage. We are here
bordering on dangerous ground. We know it. But truth
is truth ; and the plain fact is that painful distinctions are
drawn in society. There are, as Mr. Weller observed to
Mr. Pickwick, wheels within wheels, even in a prison.
Miss Toogood's papa, that eminent divine, had never
been able to reconcile his conscience with the tenets of the
Establishment. I make no comment. I record the fact.
Shut-Eye Betterman was a pillar of the society of which
Mr. Toogood was the admired pundit. It had, as I have
said, tq endure a certain ostracism on the part of another
MR. BETTERMAN. 145
section of the community. I do not think the Toogoods
and the Bettermans liked this exclusion — unavowed, but
real . Who would ? More ; I doubt if it was good for
them .
" Are not Abana and Pharpar, rivers of Damascus, better
than all the waters of Israel? " An implied contempt, you
see, drives the victim to obstinate self -justification. Young
Betterman grew up in that atmosphere. It was not his
fault. Nay, whose fault was it? Who shall award the
blame, in our ancient, complex, and obsolete social system ?
Master Betterman was subjected to rigid discipline in
his early youth. Other people might ruin their children
by indulgence — not so the Bettermans. Prayers before
breakfast, school after breakfast, school after dinner, pre-
paration after tea, prayers, bed. No variation, no relaxa-
tion. On Sunday, three long services and two Bible read-
ings. A weaker boy might have rebelled, or eluded the
iron rules of that household. But young Betterman was of
a dogged constitution. He shut his mouth, and set himself
to fulfil his destiny. He had money, he had excellent food,
and good clothes. He was taught to perceive the value
of these things, and how their possession depended upon
industry, and that the object of industry was to get money.
He never for a moment questioned these maxims.
He was never taught to try to be better than other people
— he learned that lesson unconsciously. It was in the very
air he breathed. He never, perhaps, consciously perceived
that, when two persons, or two sets of persons, are at feud
in civilised society there are only two courses of action :
the one, to attempt conciliation by mutual concession ; the
other, to manifest superiority. Pride forbade the first
course — pride, and honest conviction, very likely. The
second remained. The obvious method of manifesting
superiority over another i^ to prove him to be in the wrong
r\ possible occa ion. It A says black is black,
1; asserts that black is white. It A advances cogent argu-
ment^. B becomes a martyr to his convictions— and what
L.P.L.S. L
146 LONDON PRIDE AND LONDON SHAME.
attitude can be more convincingly superior ? After a
while, the thing becomes a habit.
Young Betterman, I say, never, perhaps, consciously
analysed the position. He simply acquired the habit. It
might have been knocked out of him at school ; but then,
neither the Toogoods nor the Bettermans approved of
public schools. Betterman junior attended a grammar
school, and lived at home.
In due time he entered his father's counting-house. Mr.
Betterman intended his son for public life ; and he con-
sidered that a sound business training was the best possible
preparation for statesmanship.
Young Betterman, then, learned by actual practice the
application of the golden rule, Buy in the cheapest market
and sell in the dearest. He remarked that the free import
of raw material, together with fine machinery and a low
rate of wages, enabled the manufacturer to make consider-
able profits. He also perceived that a large number of
persons, whose opinions and methods of life generally were
alien to his own, believed that other things might con-
ceivably be of more importance than a handsome dividend.
The result was inevitable. Young Betterman became a
" convinced Free Trader."
When the times were ripe, he entered Parliament. This
was a most dizzying experience for the provincial ; but he
kept his head, though swimming in deep waters. Mr.
Betterman, M.P., was suddenly confronted with all sorts
of problems of which he had scarce heard, but in whose
solution he was bound to take a hand. He steered man-
fully by what lights he had. But his little beacons had been
designed to illuminate a suburban street ; their dim rays
could not beam across great spaces of sea, or lighten the
darkness of a strange continent.
Mr. Betterman might, indeed, have modified his views
by the light of the opinions of others more instructed and
of wider vision than himself. But that would have been a
virtual confession of inferiority. He could not stomach
the humiliation, though none but himself would have re-
MR. BETTERMAN. 147
garded him as swallowing an affront. The old habit was
formed, wrought into metal no more ductile than cast-iron,
by the long forging of circumstance and training. More-
over, he had what may be called the fixed intellect. He
was constitutionally unable to assimilate more than a
limited quantity of ideas.
Consider now Mr. Betterman, with his inexpugnable,
irritable craving for the assertion of superiority, his fixed
intellect, with its cast iron convictions, its resultant stub-
bornness. Consider also that he found himself among men
who held the most various opinions, and yet who were
accustomed to subordinate them to purely party interests.
Their unspoken influence was, therefore, necessarily more
potent in confirming Mr. Bettcrman's tendency to cling
to his little sect, than any open persuasion exerted with the
purpose of enlightening him, could be. Persuasion
hardened his heart. He was unconscious of the prevalent
influence of the spirit of party, and was infected by it
unawares.
If our tentative analysis of the Betterman personality
be approximately accurate — and all analyses of human
character must be approximate — we may now, perhaps, be
able to understand the true signification of those extra-
ordinary actions which have hitherto confounded us.
We all remember how, when Mr. Bettcrman's native
country was at war with another nation, Mr. Betterman went
over to the other side, body and bones ; how he bitterly
reproached his fellow - countryman with gratifying a
selfish ambition and an unprincipled greed ; and how he
praised the virtues of the enemy — his probity, humility, and
noble patriotism. But surely it was clearly impossible for
Mr. Betterman to side with a majority, and equally im-
possible for him to judge of a national issue save by the
fixed standards of his teaching. Mr. Betterman had, in
first place, to justify his position Ins, Bctterman's posi-
tion, which, he had learned to believe, was of some im-
portance. Again, he had I" en taught that fighting is
wrong. In lm boyhood he never fought. He did not
L 2
148 LONDON PRIDE AND LONDON SHAME.
run away either. If any one hit him — as sometimes oc-
curred — he remained doggedly passive. Thus, the moral
victory was his.
We remember, too, how, when the settlers of his own
blood were striving to maintain order in a savage country —
of whose existence and situation Betterman's schoolmaster
had neglected to inform him — Mr. Betterman denounced
the proceedings as murderous, and called upon a tribe of
black and bloodthirsty barbarians, of whose nature he had
no knowledge whatever, to arise against the white
oppressor.
But again, how could Mr. Betterman act otherwise? The
institutions of his native town, with which alone he had any
acquaintance, are the result of the evolution of centuries.
Mr. Betterman was quite honestly unable to perceive that
the same conditions did not apply to a savage land, whose
inhabitants were less civilised than were the Britons when
the Romans came. The image in his mind was the picture
of troops firing ball cartridge into a mob of poor factory
hands, in the streets at home. His intellect, as I have said,
was a fixed quantity, incapable of the least expansion.
Many are in like case.
And then, again, we recall the apparent inconsistency
of Mr. Betterman, the ( champion of freedom, when a
measure of factory reform was brought forward. We
remember his bitter opposition and his impassioned de-
claration that the whole moral and material welfare of the
nation depended absolutely upon leaving the employers of
labour perfectly unshackled. Well, he honestly believed
what he said. He had been taught to believe that trade
was the one object of existence, and that its success
depended upon paying as little as possible for labour, and
getting as much as possible for that little. I admit that the
love of money may have influenced Mr. Betterman here.
I don't say it did — but it may have .
To understand all, says the wise French proverb, is to
forgive all . Well, I own it is hard to forgive Mr. Betterman
at times. His violence inflicts a deal of unnecessary suffer-
MR. BETTERMAN. 149
ing, you see. But there he is : a fact to be faced. He is
impervious to argument, deaf to persuasion. Opposition
hardens his heart. And yet I see nothing for it but to
withstand him ; without malice, if you will, but with a
quite uncompromising determination.
150 LONDON PRIDE AND LONDON SHAME.
XXVII.— THE WRECKERS.
" A wrecker's handful of coin gleaned from the beach to which
he has beguiled an argosy; a camp-follower's bundle of rags
unwrapped from the hearts of goodly soldiers.
THE throng of vehicles checked suddenly. In front,
scarlet glowed in the strong sun ; and from further yet
rose the wail of the pipers piping. Scarlet, and black,
and that wild music throbbing through the sunlight, chimed
together, plucking at the heart. " The Guards 1 Marching
to the Palace before disbanding. The Guards 1 " The
words ran from lip to lip, with that extraordinary instan-
taneous communication of a crowd. People jumped from
cabs, climbed down from omnibuses, ran from side streets,
to march beside the soldiers : men, women and children
marching beside the stern ranks of set faces, gazing steadily
in front beneath the bearskins.
The pipers ceased, and the drums rolled, and the brass
crashed, and the maddening music rose like a tide and beat
from wall to wall of the shining, steaming street, and
drowned the tramp of many footsteps beating in time.
In the midst were borne the colours, wreathed with a
crown of green leaves — colours scarce faded since the King
gave them to the battalion.
The strong river of scarlet and black rolled forward,
and the crowd thickened at its side, moving with it.
Beneath the swing of the music, you could hear the words
passing here and there from one to another. ' To be dis-
banded — a dirty shame — O, it's a shame — marching to
parade before the King — the last time — a shame — a
shame I " There was no shouting or gesticulation. The
crowd was very quiet, as English crowds are . Their faces
THE WRECKERS. 151
were gravely tense. They wire not indifferent. The most
of them were sullenly, bitterly, silently angry.
Fainter and fainter rang the music ; the medley of
traffic closed up behind the flash of scarlet, the shine of
sunlight on bearskin and glitter of accoutrements ; and
presently the streets that converge upon Victoria had fallen
again into their dull, unceasing clatter and tumult. The
Guards were gone by.
There is a little green enclosure in that place, shaded
by trees. As I passed up the quieter side, I beheld a man,
leaning his back against the railings, and crying. He was
not attempting to conceal his emotion, nor did any one
heed him. You can do almost anything in London, and
no one will notice you, if you do it quietly. It is part of
the horror of the place. The man was Stringer Mathieson,
of Australia— lean, long, sun-dried, with a puckered, lizard-
eye. I knew him, because it had fallen to my lot to accom-
pany him on a wild motor tour during his first visit to
England, years ago. He conceived a fine contempt for
me because I couldn't tell him how many sheep went to an
acre on the South Downs. We escaped a violent and pain-
ful death about once an hour during that voyage, and
Stringer remained totally unmoved. Yet here he was,
savagely blinking through unmistakable tears.
When he saw me, he called upon the name of his Maker,
and uttered a single sentence of a quite indescribable pro-
fanity of invective. " Easy, Stringer," I said. " You're
not in the Domain of Sydney. You'll have a policeman
here, if you don't shut up."
" Policeman ! " said Stringer, passionately ; " I'd shake
his hand. He's an honest man. I le docs the job for which
he gets his wages. Don't talk to me 1 Did you see that,
just now? " He jerked a sharp thumb in the direction of
Buckingham Palace.
" Of course," I said. " What's the matter? Taken ill
with a poem? " Mathieson was a bard in his own land.
Hence was he called Stringer, because he would String
rhymes.
152 LONDON PRIDE AND LONDON SHAME.
l( You saw those chaps going to be disbanded — one pi
the finest battalions on God's earth going to be chucked
away — you saw that, I say, and you tell me to be quiet? "
'■' Of course," I said. " We're only thankful that we've
got one or two soldiers left and a ship or so still in com-
mission. You seem surprised. Didn't you know there had
been a general election? "
"Election 1 " shouted Stringer. "What's that got to
do with it ? What do we care about your lying, dirty
election ? We've elections of our own — and if ours are
low, yours are a national degradation. Just tell me this :
How long are you English going to stand being bought and
sold for the price of a Minister's salary? "
" My dear Mathieson," I said, " I do beg of you to re-
member that — to be plain — it's not considered good form to
talk in that way. Of course I know what you mean,
but "
" : Yes," retorted Stringer, " I know. That's all England
in a sentence. You know it, but you mustn't say it ! That's
why we respect you so — in Australia, for instance. I'm not
an Englishman, thank God, and I choose to say what I
dash blank choose to say. You English, you've put a gang
of wreckers into power, and you yourselves can't say why
you did it. You know perfectly well that, because they're
wreckers, they'll wreck. And you see them at it, and you
stand by, and tell each other it's bad form to mention it.
My heart alive'! Give me a hundred Australians and I'll
engage to clean out the House of Commons inside half
an hour, and stand the racket afterwards . Only it wouldn't
be worth while. You'd only put 'em all back again. Now,
what have you got to say? "
" ■' Populus vult decipi, decipiatur ! ' " I said.
" : I don't understand French, as you know," said Stringer
Mathieson. " But I'll tell you what we think, t'other side
of the world. We think this country's gone rotten. It's
too blamed old. You can't alter it. Shut it up as a show-
place for American millionaires, and charge a shilling at
the gate. That's all you can do. But for God's sake don't
THE WRECKERS. 153
go on blethering about Empire, and the Mother-country,
and that. We're simply fed up with it."
" Judge, then," I said, " what we feel — inside the gate."
Mathieson regarded me curiously. " Are there ten
righteous left, then? " he said. " Why, I suppose there
are. Well, well — the best I can tell you is to get away out
of it while time is yet given you. But you won't — of
course you won't. You can't see, somehow — and I know
I shan't be able to convince you — that the old country has
several generations of accumulated sin to pay for, and that
the bill is being presented."
" Explain," I said.
" You're too rich, because of the way you got your
riches. You know very well how you got 'em. You
ground and starved men and women to the bone. You
called yourself the workshop of the world — isn't that the
sacred phrase ? — and then you proclaimed Free Trade, and
universal peace, and all the rest of it. Did you believe
it? Not you. Nor did the rest of the world. They were
nearly deceived, but not quite. Not quite, sir. You had
prophets in the land, I grant you — Carlyle and parties.
Nobody heeded 'em. You called 'em dreamers. I tell
you, their dreams are coming true. You're rotten at the
heart's core. . . . But I don't want to hurt your feelings."
" Continue," I said.
" Well, you are, you know. You can't suck up all the
good stuff from the land — churn up good yeoman flesh in
factories, and work the women out, without paying the
price. What do they know or care of country or Empire?
Gaol and workhouse crammed to the doors — miles of slums
— millions of acres of good land desert— there's the heart
of Empire. And never a man among your politicians will
face the facts. They stick to the old cry — Peace, peace
— when there is no peace."
A strain of martial music floated over the trees of the
park, across the tumult of traffic. Mathieson pricked up
his eara like a pointing dog. I hen In- shook his head,
screwing up his eyes, as though in pain.
154 LONDON PRIDE AND LONDON SHAME.
" It ought to be the Last Post/' he said. " O, the pity
of it. . . . Come and have a drink, any way. ' Let us
eat and drink, for to-morrow ' — eh? "
"Don't be oratorical," I said. " Be English."
Stringer Mathieson eyed me grimly, his leathern, cada-
verous countenance once more impenetrably composed.
" It's all right," he said. " I've done. I won't give you
away. I'll be real English. . . . But let's get out of
this before the men come back, or I won't say. Heh,
carrozzi ! Cab ! Drive as if the devil kicked you ! "
We drove, and the music died away behind us. A
phrase of Ruskin's set itself to the roll of the wheels : " A
wrecker's handful of coin gleaned from the beach to which
he has beguiled an argosy ; a camp follower's bundle of
rags unwrapped from the hearts of goodly soldiers. . . ."
PICTURES. 155
XXVIII.— PICTURES.
" A spiritual woven signal for .ill nations, emblem of man elate-
above death."
" This," said the lady in the flowered dress, " is so
pretty it's quite worth sitting opposite to for a minute."
She seated herself accordingly upon a green iron chair, and
gazed at the full -sized stage representation of the late Lord
Nelson's birthplace which adorned the Naval Exhibition
at Earl's Court. It is so like Nature that Nature herself
must marvel at it. But it has the stillness and rigidity of
death. The lady's gaze 'wandered. The jangle of
mechanical music filled the sultry air ; that kind of music
which is supposed to be popular because it has parted with
the essential attributes of melody.
The best exhibition we've ever had, I'm sure," said
the lady, as she moved away from before the death-mask
of Burnham Thorpe.
Is it? Well, that depends. (Not that it matters.) in
the dusky red picture galleries hung the portraits of old
seamen and great captains and the presentments of ancient
sea fights. And one chamber is consecrate to Nelson, the
deathless star of England's prowess. But outside, mingled
with the pasteboard reminders of one of the real things
that remain in England, the Navy, are a gimcrack bazaar
and a cheap-jack fair. These are will enough in their
place— but why the juxtaposition? It is to be suppo ed
that the people prefer the arrangement. And at this point
in our tram of relief tions we leave externals and (Mine to
the essential. Here are the pictured dad heroes in the
quiet galleries), and there is tie' ( rowd without. It may he
156 LONDON PRIDE AND LONDON SHAME.
merely fancy — but there seems to be some sort of inde-
scribable discrepancy or want of harmony between the two.
It may be merely superficial . If it be worth while to examine
whether there be any reason for so vaguely disquieting an
impression, one must needs observe more narrowly. Let
us begin with the seamen. What manner of men were
these fighting sailors, whose deeds we know? What can
we discern of their characters from their faces as the
artist drew them ? In such an attempt, we are to remember
that we are looking, not upon the man but, upon the man
as the artist conceived him. If the artist were greatly
gifted we shall see perhaps what we could not otherwise
have discerned. And if the painter had but a mechanical
mind, his art would partly obscure instead of reveal the
nature of his subject. In either case we behold the subject
inextricably intermixed with the temperament of the
painter ; and in addition we must needs take into account
the refractive medium of the spectator's own individual
temperament. Hence it is that in such a business we must
always work with defective instruments, so that no two
persons will arrive at precisely the same result. But never-
theless, a general agreement is attainable. Indeed, it is
upon this rough working basis that the affairs of the world
are conducted. It is an old and a true saying that we see
only that which we bring the capacity to see.
We are to proceed by the comparative method, so that
it will be convenient to take some one portrait to start
from. Here, facing down the gallery, is the big full-length
portrait of John Jervis, Earl of St .Vincent, G .C .B ., Admiral
of the Fleet. It is common knowledge that he won a great
victory over the Spanish Fleet off Cape St. Vincent ; it
is not so well known that Lord St. Vincent restored and
perfected the discipline of the British Navy at an exceed-
ingly critical time. An indomitable, wise, and crafty old
man, he looks out from Beechey's picture, gazing a little
sideways and down. He has the eyes of a commander,
alert, penetrating, and imperturbable, latently menacing.
The nose, long, boldly salient and broad at the nostrils,
PICTURES. 157
curves over the firm lips. The head domes finely above
the ears. The figure is deep-chested and sturdy. Here
is one (you would say) who would be very ill to cross ;
one who would cunningly shape a course, and who would
implacably hold to it ; who had faced the best and the
worst in life, and serenely defied either to turn him a hair's
breadth from his way. There are strength and cunning
and determination in the old man's face, but there are also
refinement and an extraordinary dignity.
One knows the qualities he displayed in life, and his
great achievement ; and it may be objected that one reads
them into the man's aspect. But, even so, try to find a
contradictory feature, and the result is the same. The
great admiral is all of a piece, his strenuous spirit moulded
his outward semblance to its own likeness in the end. So
it is always, had we but eyes to read that writing.
Turn now to the portrait of Admiral Hood, Viscount
Bridport. He was a few years senior to St. Vincent. He
fought under Hawke in the action which defeated Confians,
and he was second in command upon the Glorious First
of June under Lord Howe. His portrait shows a singu-
larly beautiful old man, his white hair falling about a face
shrewd, noble, and kindly. And in him again we mark
the keen, implacable eye, the big nose, the resolute mouth,
and the suggestion of wisdom not unmingled with the craft
of the fighting man.
So, too, with Vice - Admiral Sir Thomas Francis
Fremantle, with Vice - Admiral Lord Collingwood, with
Admiral of the Fleet Earl Howe, with Captain Basil Hall,
with Vice-Admiral William Young — to choose at random.
All these were of Nelson's time ; and all, it seems, were
stamped with the same seal. It may be an obsession on the
part of the spectator, but one cannot but believe that there
is a strong family likeness among this " band of brothers."
Each differs from the other ; yet there is not one who could
by any possibility be anything but a naval officer. Set
them, dressed in plain clothes, in any crowd of whatever
degree, and they would still stand forth conspicuous and
158 LONDON PRIDE AND LONDON SHAME.
unmistakable. Not only so, but the likeness persists to
the present day. Glance through a collection of naval
portraits, and now and again — if you have friends in the
Navy — a face will look out upon you with the lineaments
of a familiar acquaintance.
The gallery is very quiet and near deserted. From
without comes a confused noise of music and cries. The
spectator is almost alone among these silent figures of the
valiant dead. There is a kinship among them extending
unaltered through the centuries of battle and storm and
broil. And here, among the relics of his life, is the
captain of them all. Upon Nelson's countenance, noble
and melancholy and ardent, is set the same seal. /What
is it ? What is this intangible thing that sets these men
apart? Is there no trace of it in the crowd that loiters
and frolics in the garden outside and fills the streets
beyond ? Here and there, but not often, one may see it .
Faces, said Bacon, are but a gallery of pictures — pass them
in review. Clever and ugly, vacuous and pretty, handsome
or shrewd, brutal or plaintive — they press and throng. And
when we catch a hint, a glimpse, of the thing we seek,
upon whom is it impressed ? Always, surely, upon one
who has lived a hard life in unfaltering pursuit of one
thing. It is really a simple thing when you reflect upon it,
and its simple name is duty. There is no impress more
beautiful, and none, perhaps, more rare. And here we
arrive at the reason for that indefinable discordance
between the only valuable part of the exhibition and the
rest — between the people who have made it so, and the
silent faces on the wall.
Here is, perhaps, but a fancy, or at best a broken side-
light upon the bewildering confusion of a time of transi-
tion. It would have no importance were it not that the
quality we decipher so unmistakably upon the faces of the
men who learned and practised their duty under duty's
sternest teacher, the sea, was the quality that saved and
upheld the country in time of need, and that its lack must
inevitably lose what they won. If the old fibre be not weak-
PICTURES. 159
ening, why is it that we are shown the menace of the future
and never lift a hand? Why is it that we are content to
leave all duty of defence to the men of the sea, where the
old tradition still holds? We may be assured of this —
the Navy cannot do all for all time. If the land that breeds
the men of the Navy trifles with its duty, they, too, will
presently begin to fail. . . .
Our stout lady was right. The exhibition is the best
we have had— if we did but know it. And so out into the
streets again, the flaring streets where the people are buying
and selling and taking their ease, as though Nineveh had
not fallen nor Rome crumbled in ruins. A gloomy view,
no doubt. But it is only a fancy, a broken side-light on
the confusion of a time of transition. The sun will rise
to-morrow, and many to-morrows, and with it comes the
sound of many footsteps, the footsteps of a new generation.
160 LONDON PRIDE AND LONDON SHAME.
XXIX.— THE PAGEANT.
" There is no putting by that Crown . . ."
The night before the Pageant, the Cup -Bearer to King
Henry VIII. dreamed of Queens. They were very unlike
the young ladies in the shop ; even when these were
attired in Royal costumes, ordered of Jimmy Morland's
master by the ladies of the Pageant. They were also un-
like the ladies themselves, even when these assumed the
dress of their rank, after viewing their effect upon the living
models in the high-class millinery establishment of the
King's Road.
What were they like ? When he awoke, Jimmy Morland
could not remember. His eyes lighted on the green and
gold costume disposed upon a chair, and the great gilt
cup standing beside it. These trappings appeared to him
extraordinarily symbolical. Such things as these had
aforetime dwelt in the presence of Queens ; the page,
kneeling in that silken hose, had lifted the massive cup
towards her Majesty, and his eyes, perhaps, had looked
into hers. . . .
Jimmy Morland went down to breakfast in the gas -lit
basement, with the other shop assistants. For the first
time in some dreary years, that leaden meal did not affect
him ; he heard, without heeding, the talk of his com-
panions rise about him like an inarticulate gabble ; and
their familiar faces appeared insignificant like masks . The
sting of these things was drawn ; their dull, implacable
reminder that so, and just so, should all the days of his
life be, without hope of escape, till the end, was remitted.
Morland did not reason upon this remarkable circum-
THE PAGEANT. 161
stance ; he was merely conscious of a hope, of an im-
pending knowledge of some great and shining idea, in
whose veiled presence he was content to stand. That it
might be, as he said to himself, " all a bit of fancy," which
might leave him suddenly, leave him grounded again upon
dusty, garish trivialities and grinding tedium, he was also
aware ; but he did not think about that.
Morland was to be released from the shop at noon, for
the Pageant was to open at three o'clock.
" Now my boy," said his employer, " get about your
work smart. You must get done somehow — can't afford
to let you off, else, y'know."
The burly milliner spoke not unkindly, but according
to his habit. In common with most shop-keepers of a
certain class, he held it his duty to drive his assistants
like slaves ; that was "business," and business was his
god ; but his driving principles were mitigated by a pro-
pensity towards good-nature. Business and good-nature
had combined to induce him to let young Morland enlist
in the Pageant. Business told him that, as he supplied
dresses for the actors, it was well to keep in with the Com-
mittee, who had picked out young Morland as a likely page.
Good -nature said, let the boy have a bit of an outing.
And when the Committee asked Mr. Brophy to take the
part of a Royal Duke accused of high treason, tried before
his peers, and led to execution in jingling chains, there
was hardly anything (had they but known it) which he
would not have given them.
" A good part, though I say it," Mr. Brophy would con-
fide to a friendly customer. " In fact, between you and
me, it's the only part in the 'ole performance— what I call
a Part! "
Mr. Brophy had Jimmy to a cold lunch in his own sacred
dining-room—" slice of beef and a glass of sherry, my boy.
Help yourself." It was a small room, floridly papered,
vividly carpeted, a gilt clock preserved under a glass shade
on the black marble mantelpiece, and flanked by mottled
vases containing spills. The apartment smelt of varnish,
L.P.L.S. M
1 62 LONDON PRIDE AND LONDON SHAME.
an odour associated in Jimmy's mind with the signing of
his indentures, eight years before, when he was a small
pale depressed boy of fourteen. He had often thought
since, that if he had known to what that " act and deed "
committed him, he would have run out of the room, and
into the street, and away — away to anywhere, before sign-
ing his name beside the red wafer. The same thought
came to him again, as he modestly sipped at Mr. Brophy's
Old East India Brown ; and with it came an inspiration.
"Why not chuck it? " His indentures had expired. He
was an ''improver," earning ten shillings a week and his
board and the privilege of " improving " himself in a busi-
ness whose every detail an intelligent person could master
in three months. " ; Why not? Why not chuck it? " The
idea was not new . Many a time had Morland come to the
edge of revolt ; and dismayed by the hopeless prospect
beyond, had sullenly drawn back, and relapsed into
resignation.
But to-day, it appeared to him that in the world which
the Pageant had revealed to him, a world wherein men
fought and lusted at their will, and hazarded all and lost
and won ; a world peopled by all manner of gracious
presences, among whom the long procession of Queens
moved sad and smiling and stately, Guinevere and
Boadicea, ^Ethelflaed and Matilda, Anne of Cleves and
Elizabeth ; in such a world, there must be room and place
for a man outside the glass -walled, stifling shop, in which
the assistants were imprisoned like the flies on the pane.
Of course there must. The thing was absurd. Besides,
thought Jimmy Morland, walking to the Pageant grounds,
all these multitudes of people in the streets were free
people. They were not in shops. Yet they lived, and had
time to come and stare at him, walking to the Pageant
with his cheap mackintosh cloaking his page's dress, all but
the white hose and buckled shoes .
He came into the littered enclosure behind the trees,
where painted men in scanty tunics lounged beside their
horses, smoking pipes, and Druids mixed with dancing
THE PAGEANT. 163
girls, and brazen Roman soldiers mingled with black-robed
nuns, and a Saxon Archbishop, in cope and mitre, walked
arm - in - arm with the gigantic figure of William the
Norman. Pretty girls eyed the Cup-bearer with the
English gaze which sees without seeing ; and Jimmy
Morland was abashed. The sun beat strongly on the dis-
array, and the music of the overture sounded from beyond
the trees. Druids and Romans came and went ; the Early
British cavalry thundered out at a gallop ; the Saxon pre-
lates assembled to hear the king give judgment ; and the
Cup-bearer ran along with the crowd of May -Day revellers.
They danced and shouted upon the sunbright space of
grass, beneath the hill of spectators rising beneath the
wooden roofs, and then all were gone with the swiftness of
a dream, and the sunbright space was empty.
Jimmy Morland stood aside among the bushes, holding
the gold cup, until King Henry Eight should require his
service. He watched the red halberdiers file down the
winding path between the bushes, and line up in the centre
of the sunbright space, where grave men in black gowns
were holding converse ; he watched the watermen in white
and green, file down the winding path between the bushes,
and stand in a double row, making an arch of their long
oars ; and he saw the burly King rolling down the winding
path between the bushes, and pass beneath the oars, and
greet the grave men in black, and presently walk up and
down with one of them, his great arm resting on the grave
man's shoulder. Then the players came together in a
group, and the Cup-bearer stepped forward, and kneeling,
offered the goblet to the King.
Just behind his Majesty, stood a girl attired in a dove-
coloured dress, and Jimmy Morland looked up and met her
glance. She did not gaze through him without seeing
him, like the other girls. She surveyed him gravely.
Presently they stood aside together, and watched the end
of the scene.
it occurred to Jimmy, that if he were not what he was :
if he were a free man, like these others ; if lie had the right
If 2
1 64 LONDON PRIDE AND LONDON SHAME.
to mingle in polite society ; if he were not there on suf-
ferance, as an actor in the Pageant, the stain of the shop
ignored for the time being ; how happy he would be. He
would then, he was sure, be able to speak to the lady at his
side naturally and easily. He would then, he was sure,
be able to look her full in the face without embarrassment.
It struck him that he might achieve that position at a stride.
Five minutes — painful but brief — with Mr . Brophy, and the
thing was done. Why, then, he was practically free already
— free, save for a mere form . The thought filled him with
a sudden unreasonable exaltation. He glanced at the girl
beside him. She appeared to be wrapt in that icy, in-
tangible mantle which held real ladies aloof and apart and
unapproachable. If he were to speak to her, how should
he begin? Should he call her " Miss? "...
Out in the sunlight, Sir Thomas More, following the
Pursuivant, turned suddenly, to bid his wife farewell, and
the Dame kneeled beside the black figure.
" It's very real, isn't it? "- said the girl, pleasantly, and
Jimmy felt that he was facing a crisis .
" Do you know, that's just what I feel it isn't," he said ;
and wondered at the sound of his own voice.
" ; O, but why? I think they do it so well," returned the
girl, her brown eyes looking him directly in the face.
" It isn't like what things are now, I mean," said Jimmy,
labouring with some confusion of thought. " Seems to
me things have changed for the worse."
"-Sir Thomas More is going away to execution," said
the girl, looking after the dark -robed figure as it ascended
the winding path between ,the bushes. "That wouldn't
happen now, would it ? a
4i He had his innings, after all,"- persisted Jimmy.
" : There's lots of chaps like — lots of fellows I know, who
don't get the chance of that much, nowadays.'-'
,fj Men can make their own chance, surely," said the girl.
<£ They could — then!" Jimmy jerked a thumb at the
Lord High Admiral of England, who was paying audacious
court to the Lady Elizabeth. "Kings and Queens, too,"
he added, inconsequently .
THE PAGEANT. ^ 165
''There's Lady Jane Grey," said the girl. " Isn't she
sweet? I like her better than Elizabeth. But I shouldn't
like to be a Queen."
Jimmy Morland had attended a course of University
extension lectures on English literature. A certain passage
flitted through his mind. ..." You must be in many a
heart enthroned: there is no putting by that crown;
queens you must always be ." . . .
" Yes," he said. " There is no putting by that crown."
And then he felt that he was saying something he had said
before, sometime, somewhere, standing in the green shade,
looking upon the bright and moving spectacle of the
Pageant as he stood now <; and he knew what the reply
would be.
" Is that a quotation? " asked the girl.
" Yes," said Jimmy. " I couldn't ever have thought of
it myself — not to put it in those words, like," he added
modestly.
" Are you fond of reading ? " she asked.
" Like it better than anything,'' replied Jimmy. '* Only,
you see, I don't get much time. At work from eight in the
morning till eight or nine at night, you see. But I manage
to get in a bit when the — after hours, and on Sundays."
" My father writes books," said the girl.
"Does he indeed?" His tone expressed profound
veneration . " Do you write, too ? " he ventured.
" O, no. My spelling isn't very good. Besides, I'm not
original. I haven't any ideas. I should hate to have to
write."
" Would you really? "
" Why, do you think it such a good thing, then ? " asked
the girl .
"The only thing," said Jimmy, with conviction. He
had not thought of it before, but now he felt quite sure,
as if he had suddenly discovered the solution of a puzzle.
The graceful and stately figures of the Pageant came
and went in the sunlight ; there was a sound of music in
the air, mingled now and then with the monotone of a voice
1 66 LONDON PRIDE AND LONDON SHAME.
speaking, and a clapping of hands. The sunbright space
was cleared, and then there came a motley procession of
children and waving banners, vividly hued like flowers.
All the persons in the " Faerie Queene " passed slowly in
review, very plain to see, yet unearthly like a dream : the
Red Cross Knight, Una, Archimago, the Dwarf, a little
solemn Lion pacing upright, Britomart, the Seven Deadly
Sins, and the six ape-like Beasts, ambling in front of the
gilded coach. Then came Dame Celia, Pastorella, Sir
Calidore, the Lord of Many Isles, 'Melibasus, Corydon, shep-
herds and shepherdesses, and a little solemn tiger pacing
very upright. The little striped beast climbed to the sum-
mit of a knoll, and stood watching the masque go by, while
Edmund Spenser, the creator of that strange and beautiful
fantasy, stood apart, reciting his very noble and melodious
verse. So passed Sir Guyon, Mammon and Philotima, the
Palmer, and Care, Pain, Strife, Revenge, Despite, Treason,
Hate, Jealousy, Fear, Sorrow, Shame, Horror ; and Cam-
bina, Priamond, Diamond, Triamond, the Three Fates, the
Chariot with the Lions, the Dragon, Duessa, and the vast
goggling Giant Orgoglio, towering above the rest, his wide
raiment blown like a sail ; and then came Gloriana, be-
ruffed, be-diademed, guarded by her Halberdiers. And
the little solemn Tiger surveyed them all, and paddled down
to join the procession ; the while Edmund Spenser recited
the magic words in which the whole rout of faery lived
and shone and had their being.
Jimmy Morland was seized with a sudden, strange excite-
ment. Something rose in his throat ; his eyelids smarted.
"There ! " he said, thickly. " There it is. Just as I
was saying — the only thing. The only thing in life."
'-' What? " said the girl.
" That," said Jimmy, earnestly, " That there. Why it's
alive — as alive now as when he wrote it. That's what I call
worth doing. It's real, that is ! "
She regarded him curiously. " My father would like to
hear you say that/' she said. " You ought to be a writer 4
— a poet."
THE PAGEANT. 167,
" What, me"! " said Jimmy, bitterly. |4 Me? I'm in a
shop. I sell ribbons over a counter, from eight to eight,
that's what I do. I'm one of the fellers what Tennyson
talks about — a knave what strikes with his cheating yard
arm home, or something. Strike? There's nothing to
strike, what I can see of it. Why, I've no right to be
talking to you like I have done. I'm a shopman, I am."
" There's no disgrace in that," said the girl.
" No, but people think as there is,"- returned Jimmy.
u - Not that I care. It's being it, that's the trouble."
" Why don't you give it up ? "
" Starve," said Jimmy, laconically. '-' Not but what I'd
chance it," he added.
'' There's my father," said the girl suddenly.
A grey-headed gentleman stood in the sunlight, his hat
under his arm, looking about him. The girl went towards
him. Jimmy watched them talking together.
Across the sunbright space, passed the funeral obsequies
of a Queen of England, a great train of black-robed nuns,
and swaying banners brightly blazoned, to the solemn
chant of the Dies Irce .
,£ That's what it comes to," said Jimmy Morland to him-
self. ,£ Lord, what a fool I made of myself, too.' 1
The bier borne shoulder high, the scarlet banners, the
black monks and nuns, the mitred Abbot, the painted
herald, went slowly by, the strains of the dirge rising and
falling upon the still hot air.
" Ah, that's what it comes to, all the time," said Jimmy
Morland. " Queens and all."
Then he became aware of the girl returning towards him,
her bright figure relieved upon the sombre, receding funeral
train.
" My father wants to speak to you," she said. - Will
you come ? "
' How do you do, Mr. Cup -bearer," said the grey-
headed gentleman, pleasantly. "- I see you are interested
in the Pageant."
" Yes, sir," said Jimmy.
1 68 LONDON PRIDE AND LONDON SHAME.
" You are kind enough to take a part in King Henry's
episode, which I had the pleasure of writing," continued
the grey-headed gentleman. ' 5 They are the small parts
that are often the difficulty. If you will allow me to say
so, I thought you performed yours admirably well."
Jimmy blushed.
"Some people say," pursued the grey-headed gentle-
man, " that these Pageants tend to make some of the players
discontented with the ordinary routine of life. What do
you think ? "
" Per'aps they may have been discontented before, and
the Pageant put an edge on it, like," said Jimmy wistfully.
" They see possibilities, you mean ? " returned the other,
eyeing him kindly.
"• That's it," said Jimmy, looking aside.
"■Mind," said the grey-headed gentleman, "I don't
think that's a bad thing. I think it's a good thing — if it
happens to the right man. The kind of man, I mean, who
is prepared to fight for what he wants, and wait, and go on
fighting. Then, I say, there's always a way out."
" You mean, a man can always make his own chance? "
Jimmy carefully avoided glancing at the girl standing
grave and attentive beside her father, as he echoed her
words.
"Quite," said the grey-headed gentleman, brightly.
" Well, this is a very interesting subject — we must have
another talk, Mr. Cup-bearer." He produced a card. "• If
you care to come and see me some evening, I shall be
delighted. Come to-night, will you? That's right."
He nodded and turned away . The girl beside him bowed
gravely. Jimmy Morland, standing with his page's cap in
his hand, beheld her departing through the sunlight.
THESE SIGNS. 169
XXX.— THESE SIGNS.
"And let it be, when these signs are come unto thee, that thou do as
occasion serve thee.' — First Book of Samuel, x. 7.
Two little boys and a small fair-haired girl are standing
at a narrow deal table, set in the middle of the bare floor,
breakfasting. They are standing, because — for the moment
—there are no chairs. The chairs and other things come
and go, as the household budget varies. The children's
rations are half a loaf, a wedge of margarine, and some
stewed tea . The children's faces are wan, clean and shining .
The boys wear starched collars, the girl is clad in a clean
pinafore. Their mother washed them overnight, in water
fetched from the basement, and heated (in a bucket) on
the open fire. She was moved to this effort because the
children had told her that the morrow was a kind of festal
day, called — so teacher said— Empire Day ; when some
vague ceremonies in the morning were to be followed by a
half -holiday.
In the corner, under the sloping roof of the garret, two
stalwart youths lay sleeping on the bed, covered by a piece
of drugget. They were selling papers in the streets till
past midnight. On the wall is a framed oleograph of the
late Queen Victoria. The recess beside the fireplace is
fitted with shelves, whose edges are decorated with pink
tissue-paper, cut into a pattern, like ham-frills. A yellow
chest of drawers is tilted again, t the wall. Besides one
or two indistinguishable heaps of dirty household utensils,
there i-> nothing else in the room.
The mother, a tall, gaunt woman, stands with her arms
i7.o LONDON PRIDE AND LONDON. SHAME.
folded, her back to the street window, looking down upon
the children. Her face is lined and set into a mask of
dogged endurance. Not until the ringer of death touches
it will the features relax.
From a steeple near by, lifted very high and far above
the dense-packed houses, the hour chimes, and the children
clatter down the dark stair (steps and wall and handrail
smeared with the peculiar foul dry grease of London) into
the arched passage leading to the street. There is a post,
also ingrained with the London grease, set midway in the
entrance. Against the post leans the father of the family,
himself one smear from head to foot. He is smoking the
black stump of a clay pipe.
■'•' Empire Day, is it? " he says indolently, surveying the
children. " What's that, then? Never heard of it when
I was at school. Go along now." And so the children
melt into the throng of the great turbulent thoroughfare,
and join other children ; hundreds of children trotting in
and out the tide of foot passengers towards the cliff of
the brick building. Upon its summit, a brand-new Union
Jack is scrolled vividly upon the sullen sky.
Acres of streets, miles of streets, thousands of houses,
the inhabitants thick as mites in cheese : in London, in
Bristol, in Portsmouth ; in the north, in the midlands, the
black streets climbing stonily up and down the hills, the
same ; in Manchester, Hull, Liverpool, Birmingham, Shef-
field — all, in their varying degrees, the same, this Empire
Day. Here dwell the Imperial People ; teeming millions
of Imperial People, in immense beer-sodden, gin -soaked,
immovable, clotted masses. Examine the mass in detail,
and you will perceive some such matter as that which is
here indicated — only indicated — in a sketch from nature.
Some three hundred years ago, in the little seaport town
of Bristol, a parson's son said to his father, " Now Jack's
going to Cambridge, it's time I began to fend for myself.
Here's a new venture to the East Indies. Put in what
money you can spare, and let me hale and draw with the
THESE SIGNS. 171
mariners." And the lawyer's son said the same to his
father, and the butcher's son to his father, and so it befell
in the burgesses' houses of Bristol. Of sailors there was
no lack ; many a stout ploughhoy who had shipped ere the
Spaniards came, and who had chased the Armada all up
Channel, was waiting for a job along the quays. After
two and a half centuries, the whole of India had passed
to the British Crown. Not all those young men of Bristol
came home again. But there were always more to go ;
and presently they, or their sons, or their son's sons,
returned with much riches.
Near two hundred and fifty years ago, Cromwell found
no lack of men to send to Jamaica, which island they took
at point of sword ; and somehow the English spread
throughout the sugar islands of the West Indies, and stayed
there. There was plenty of room in England, then. The
best land in the world bred the stoutest race in the world ;
and fed them well enough ; but out they must go. They
wanted a change ; or they wanted money ; or they loved
the wrong woman ; or they had killed a man ; or the priests
annoyed them ; and so out they went.
Some years before Cromwell took hold on the sceptre,
a little company of Puritans had gone to America, pro-
testing that they had been deprived at home of the privi-
leges of their birthright. A century and a half afterwards,
thirteen proud States declared their independence ; and
some fifty years after that, the Two Canadas were united
under the British Crown.
Meanwhile, Captain James Cook, voyaging the South
Seas, had lighted upon Australia ; it seemed to him likely
to provide a pleasant retreat for Englishmen in trouble ; so
he annexed the continent, in case it might prove useful.
1 here were hard laws in those days, made to curb a hard
race ; and the convict ships took the English to Australia.
Tin- Cape would not let their pa < ngers land. A picture
in the mind, of a ship, her dec les crowded, lying
under Table Mountain, and men with muskets lining the
172 LONDON PRIDE AND LONDON SHAME.
beach. Presently the ship goes about, heading south, and
diminishes, and vanishes away. And a week or so ago the
Premiers of Australasia were here in England., speaking to
the English people with the voice of two vigorous nations .
And all down the generations the men of England were
sailing and fighting east and west and south ; parson's
son, squire's son, the son of the lord, the son of the plough-
man, of the farmer, of the tradesman. Always they went,
because they would go, or because the wrong horse won —
a hundred various reasons. They are going still. Not
for them is Empire Day, save as a greeting and a memorial .
Not for you, ye Who did for the rade what never man did
before on this earth, though you knew not what you did ;
for now you know.
Not for these, but for the children of England, is Empire
Day ; and the flag that's hoisted on their schools is the
ensign of a forlorn hope. That is what a hundred years
of industrial supremacy have brought us to at last ; to the
flag of England flying above the immense, beer-sodden,
gin-soaked, immovable clotted masses, as a sign to the
children, ere they, too, sink into that pullulating degrada-
tion to bring forth. after their kind.
The flag can but point the way, which the founders of
Empire Day have called Duty. Duty, to the grey mass
from which the children spring (like flowers from the
slime) means nothing, has never meant anything, and will
never mean anything. Pray let us face the facts, if we
are at all in earnest in this matter. We have bred this
people j the people of the single room, the tenement, the
people of idleness and slavery and want. The gigantic
mortgage which the lords of industry raised upon the man-
hood and the womanhood of England is beginning to fall
due. Now are we frantically casting about in our minds
to find a way to escape payment . There is no way . Nature
does not forgive debts.
But, " under the good providence of God," England was
never wholly the shop. The younger son who had small
THESE SIGNS. 173
taste for the counter went forth — to find his father's asses
very likely — and he found, like Saul, the son of Kish, a
kingdom. His are the magnificent possessions with which
we may — it is possible — pay off, or at least extend the period
of that fatal mortgage. In the wise old fairy stories it is
ever the younger son contemned of his very respectable
family, who seeks his fortune, and who comes home to
restore his family, fallen by overmuch avarice. He is a good
boy now ; his adventures have chastened him ; duty is his
watchword ; and so M he lives happy ever afterwards ." But
his family was not all bad ; sometimes there was a good
sister or so ; and she (poor soul), suffering undeserved
hardships, set her hopes upon a world to come.
Since this world has failed so lamentably, there must be
another. So runs the simple creed of many and many an
honest heart, whelmed and strangled amid the immense
beer-sodden, gin-soaked, immovable, clotted masses. The
world they know is sour, narrow, hungry, and hard ; closed
in by a monstrous labyrinth of vile houses ; without hope.
Well, here is another world in this life, waiting for them ;
or, if not for them, for their children ; not to be won
without courage and indomitable perseverance ; no Para-
dise, but common earth ; yet ample and generous, return-
ing good meed for honest labour, giving room and verge
enough under clear skies for many a thousand English
homes.
This is the gift of the younger son. This is what he
has gained for the elder branch . Therefore is Empire Day
both the sign and symbol of a great achievement, and the
call to follow a forlorn hope. Forlorn, because for the
immense grey mass there is no release ; and because their
children must break the strong thraldom, of ignorance and
apathy and vice, if they would be free.
So we come back to the garret, up the greasy stair, in
which a gaunt woman starves and slaves with shut lips ;
the piece of wretched bread, the margarine, the vile tea,
the frowsy bed ; the husband cadging hall pence tor a
174 LONDON PRIDE AND LONDON SHAME.
drink, the thin, alert boys coming in dog-tired from the
streets ; the children coming home hungry from school,
to a fireless grate.
But the window looks forth upon the sky, and there is
the glimmer of a flag scrolled upon the lowering clouds.
Finis.
BRADBURY, AGNKW & CO., LTD., PRINTERS, LONDON AND TONBRIDGK.
The Author desires to acknowledge the
courtesy of the Proprietors of the Morning
Post, Standard, Standard of Empire and
Evening Standard and St. James's Gazette
for permission to reproduce such of these
sketches as have already appeared in the
publications under their control.
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P. S. KING & SOX'S CATALOGUE 13
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P. S. KING & SON'S CATALOGUE 21
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22 P. S. KING & SON'S CATALOGUE
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24 P. S. KING & SON'S CATALOGUE
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