London's Underworld Part 19

Look! two lads are charged with one offence or two similar offences; one boy is from the upperworld, the other from below the line. The same magistrate fines the two boys an equal amount; the one boy pays, or his friends pay; but the other goes of a certainty to prison. Is it not absurd! rather, is it not unjust?

But whether it is absurd or unjust the result is certain--mathematically certain--in the development of a prison population.

During my police-court days I have seen hundreds of youths sitting crying in their cells consumed with fear, waiting their first experience of prison; I have seen their terror when first entering the prison van, and I know that when entering the prison portals their terror increased.

But it soon vanished, for I have never seen boys cry, or show any signs of fear when going to prison for the second time. The reason for this I have already given: "fear of the unknown" has been removed. This fear may not be a very n.o.ble characteristic, but it is part of us, and it has a useful place, especially where penalties are likely to be incurred.

For many years I have been protesting against this needless imprisonment of youths, and now it has become part of my duty to visit prisons and to talk to youthful prisoners, I see the wholesale evil that attends this method of dealing with youthful offenders. And the same evils attend, though to perhaps a less degree, the prompt imprisonment of adults, who are unable to pay forthwith fines that have been imposed upon them.

It is always the poor, the very poor, the people below the line that suffer in this direction. Doubtless they merit some correction, and the magistrates consider that fines of ten shillings are appropriate, but then they thoughtlessly add "or seven days."

Think of the folly of it! because a man cannot pay a few shillings down, the State conveys him to prison and puts the community to the very considerable expense of keeping him. The law has fined him, but he cannot pay then, so the law turns round and fines the community.

What sense, decency, or profit can there possibly be in committing women to prison, even for drunkenness, for three, five or seven days? How can it profit either the State or the woman? It only serves to familiarise her with prison.

I could laugh at it, were it not so serious. Just look at this absurdity! A woman gets drunk on Thursday, she is charged on Friday.

"Five shillings, or three days!" On Friday afternoon she enters prison, for the clerk has made out a "commitment," and the gaoler has handed her into the prison van. Her "commitment" is handed to the prison authorities; it is tabulated, so is she; but at nine o'clock next morning she is discharged from prison, for the law reckons every part of a day to be a complete day; and the law also says that there must be no discharge from prison on a Sunday, and to keep her till Monday would be illegal, for it would be "four days." How small, how disastrous, and how expensive it is!

If offenders, young or old, must be punished, let them be punished decently. If they ought to be sent to prison, to prison send them.

But if their petty offences can be expunged by the payment of a few shillings, why not give them a little time to pay those fines? Such a course would stop for ever the miserable, deadly round of short expensive imprisonments. I have approached succeeding Home Secretaries upon this matter till I am tired; succeeding Home Secretaries have sent memorandums and recommendations to courts of summary jurisdiction till, I expect, they are tired, for generally they have had no effect in mitigating the evil.

Magistrates have the power to grant time for the payment of fines, but it is optional, not imperative. It is high time for a change, and surely it will come, for the absurdity cannot continue.

Surely every English man and woman who possesses a settled home ought to have, and must have, the legal right of a few days' grace in which to pay his or her fine. And every youthful offender ought to have the same right, also, even if he paid by instalments.

But at present it is so much easier, and therefore so much better, to thrust the underworld, youthful and adult, into prison and have done with them, than it is to pursue a sane but a little bit troublesome method that would keep thousands of the poor from ever entering prison.

CHAPTER XIII. UNEMPLOYED AND UNEMPLOYABLE

My life has been one of activity; from an early age I have known what it was to be constantly at work. To have the certainty of regular work, and to have the discipline of constant duty, seem to me an ideal state for mind and body. Labour, we are sometimes told, is one of G.o.d's chastis.e.m.e.nts upon a fallen race; I believe it to be one of our choicest blessings. I can conceive only one greater tragedy than the man who has nothing to do, and that is the man who, earnestly longing for work, seeks it day by day, and fails to find it.

Imagine his position, and imagine also, if you possibly can, the great qualities that are demanded if such a man is to go through a lengthened period of unemployment without losing his dignity, his manhood and his desire for work.

I can tell at a glance the man who has had this experience. There is something about his face that proclaims his hopelessness, the very poise of his body and his peculiar measured step tell that his heart is utterly unexpectant. To-morrow morning, and every morning, thousands of men will rise early, even before the sun, and set out on their weary tramp and hopeless search for work. To-morrow morning, and every morning, thousands of men will be waiting at various dock-gates for a chance of obtaining a few hours' hard work. And while these wait, others tramp, seeking and asking for work.

Wives may be ill at home, children may be wanting food and clothing, but every day thousands of husbands set out on the interminable search for work, and every day return disappointed. Small wonder that some of them descend to a lower grade and in addition to being unemployed, become unemployable.

Look at those thousands of men clamouring daily at our dock-gates; about one-half of them will obtain a few hours' hard work, but the other half will go hopeless away. They will gather some courage during the night, for the next morning they will find their way to, and be knocking once more at, the same dock-gates. It takes sterling qualities to endure this life, and there can be no greater hero than the man who goes through it and still retains manhood.

But it would be more than a miracle if tens of thousands of men could live this life without many of them becoming wastrels, for it is certain that a life of unemployment is dangerous to manhood, to character and health.

As a matter of fact the ranks of the utterly submerged are being constantly recruited from the ranks of those who have but casual work. During winter the existence of the unemployed is more amply demonstrated, for then we are called upon to witness the most depressing of all London's sights, a parade of the unemployed. I never see one without experiencing strange and mixed emotions. Let me picture a parade, for where I live they are numerous, and at least once a week one will pa.s.s my window.

I hear the doleful strains of a tin whistle accompanied with a rub-a-dub-dub of a kettledrum that has known its best days, and whose sound is as doleful as that of the whistle. I know what is coming, and, though I have seen it many times, it has still a fascination for me, so I stand at my window and watch. I see two men carrying a dilapidated banner, on which is inscribed two words, "The Unemployed." The man with the tin whistle and the man with the drum follow the banner, and behind them is a company of men marching four abreast. Two policemen on the pavement keep pace with the head of the procession, and two others perform a similar duty at the end of it.

On the pavement are a number of men with collecting boxes, ready to receive any contribution that charitably inclined people may bestow.

They do not knock at any door, but they stand for a moment and rattle their boxes in front of every window.

The sound of the whistle and the drum, and the rattle of boxes is, in all conscience, depressing enough, but one glimpse at the men is infinitely more so.

Most of them are below the average height and bulk. Their hands are in their trousers pockets, their shoulders are up, but their heads are bent downwards as if they were half ashamed of their job. A peculiar slouching gait is characteristic of the whole company, and I look in vain for a firm step, an upright carriage, and for some signs of alert manhood. As they pa.s.s slowly by I see that some are old, but I also see that the majority of them are comparatively young, and that many of them cannot be more than thirty years of age. But whether young or old, I am conscious of the fact that few of them are possessed of strength, ability and grit. There are no artisans or craftsmen among them, and stalwart labourers are not in evidence.

Pitiful as the procession is, I know that it does not represent the genuine and struggling unemployed. They pa.s.s slowly by and go from street to street. So they will parade throughout the livelong day. The police will accompany them, and will see them disbanded when the evening closes in. The boxes will be emptied, the contents tabulated, and a pro rata division will be made, after which the processionists will go home and remain unemployed till the next weekly parade comes round.

Unemployable! yes, but so much the greater pity; and so much more difficult the problem, for they represent a very large cla.s.s, and it is to be feared a growing cla.s.s of the manhood of London's underworld.

We cannot blame them for their physical inferiority, nor for their lack of ability and grit. To expect them to exhibit great qualities would be absurd. They are what they are, and a wise country would ponder the causes that lead to such decadent manhood. During my prison lectures I have been frequently struck with the mean size and appearance of the prisoners under twenty-two years of age, who are so numerous in our London prisons. From many conversations with them I have learned that lack of physical strength means also lack of mental and moral strength, and lack of honest aspiration, too! I am confirmed in this judgment by a statement that appeared in the annual report of the Prison Commissioners, who state that some years ago they adapted the plan in Pentonville prison of weighing and measuring all the prisoners under the age of twenty-two.

The result I will tell in their own words: "As a cla.s.s they are two-and-a-half inches below the average height of the general youthful population of the same age, and weigh approximately fourteen pounds less."

Here, then, we have an official proof of physical decadence, and of its connection with prison life. For these young men, so continuously in prison, grow into what should be manhood without any desire or qualification for robust industrial life.

I never speak to them without feeling a deep pity. But as it is my business to interest them, I try to learn something from them in return, as the following ill.u.s.tration will show.

I had been giving a course of lectures on industrial life to the young prisoners in Wormwood Scrubbs, who numbered over three hundred. On my last visit I interrogated them as follows--

"Stand up those of you that have had regular or continuous work." None of them stood up! "Stand up those of you who have been apprentices."

None of them stood up! "Stand up those of you who sold papers in the street before you left school." Twenty-five responded! "How many sold other things in the streets before leaving school?" Thirty! Seventeen others sold papers after leaving school, and thirty-eight sold various articles. Altogether I found that nearly two hundred had been in street occupations.

To my final question: "How many of you have met me in other prisons?"

Thirty-five stood up! I give these particulars because I think my readers will realise the bearing they have on unemployment.

Surely it is obvious that if we continue to have a growing number of physically inferior young men, who acquire no technical skill and have not the slightest industrial training, that we shall continue to have an increasing number of unemployed unemployables.

CHAPTER XIV. SUGGESTIONS

I propose in this last chapter to make some suggestions, which, I venture to hope, will be found worthy of consideration and adoption.

The causes of so much misery, suffering and poverty in a rich and self-governing country are numerous; and every cause needs a separate consideration and remedy.

There is no royal road by which the underworld people can ascend to the upperworld; there can be no specific for healing all the sores from which humanity suffers.

Our complex civilisation, our industrial methods, our strange social system, combined with the varied characteristics mental and physical of individuals, make social salvation for the ma.s.s difficult and quite impossible for many.

I shall have written with very little effect if I have not shown what some of these individual characteristics are. They are strange, powerful and extraordinary. So very mixed, even in one individual, that while sometimes they inspire hope, at others they provoke despair.

If we couple the difficulties of individual character with the social, industrial and economic difficulties, we see at once how great the problem is.

We must admit, and we ought frankly to admit the truth, and to face it, that there exists a very large army of people that cannot be socially saved. What is more important, they do not want to be saved, and will not be saved if they can avoid it. Their great desire is to be left alone, to be allowed to live where and how they like.

For these people there must be, there will be, and at no far distant date, detention, segregation and cla.s.sification. We must let them quietly die out, for it is not only folly, but suicidal folly to allow them to continue and to perpetuate.

But we are often told that "Heaven helps those who help themselves"; in fact, we have been told it so often that we have come to believe it, and, what is worse, we religiously or irreligiously act upon it when dealing with those below the line.

If any serious attempt is ever made to lessen the number of the homeless and dest.i.tute, if that attempt is to have any chance of success, it will, I am sure, be necessary to make an alteration in the adage and a reversal of our present methods.

If the adage ran, "Heaven helps those who cannot help themselves," and if we all placed ourselves on the side of Heaven, the present abominable and distressing state of affairs would not endure for a month.