Life in a London Workhouse (1928)

Life in a London Workhouse
By a Temporary Inmate

It has been my fate to have spent some eighteen months of my life in a London workhouse. My sojourn was no intentional act, undertaken with the comforting knowledge that I could end it at any time I chose. It was, on the contrary, the real thing, and for that reason I believe that the following pages may be of some interest to the reader. For I write, not only with considerable inside knowledge of my subject, but also with a lively recollection of the frame of mind in which that knowledge was gained.

In the early evening of a November Sunday I presented myself at the gate of Avernus and requested admittance. The necessary permission from the adjacent Relieving Office cleared the way to the Receiving Ward, where I found that I had arrived just in time for the evening meal, which consisted of bread and margarine and a pint of tea. There followed a hot bath, and I presently saw my entire belongings stuffed into a large canvas bag, and found myself attired in clothes which, to my naturally depressed and agitated mind, appeared to have been prepared, with deliberate calculation, for my complete discomfort and humiliation. These abominable rags were so aged and filthy that I thought their previous wearer might easily have been one of my anthropoid ancestors — a fancy which was almost immediately borne out by my further discovery that both my waistcoat pockets were filled with the discoloured remnants of a number of ancient nuts!

While on the subject of the Receiving Ward, there is one word I should like to say about the rules relating to underclothing. If a new inmate be found on arrival to be wearing neither vest nor pants, he will not be provided with corresponding articles of "House" clothing, no matter how long he may remain in the institution. That is to say, a new-comer entering the place very lightly clad, owing to the time being the height of summer or for any other reason, will remain so clad, be the ensuing winter as severe as it may. The reader may possibly be able to imagine some plausible reason for such a rule, but I am confident that No reason that can be adduced will, upon final judgment, be deemed sufficient to justify so stupid and cruel a regulation.

I myself was lucky in this respect, in that I was wearing underclothes on arrival. In fact, I was not made aware of the existence of this infamous regulation until a much later date, when it was impressed upon me in a manner which I am likely neither to forget nor to forgive. But of this more anon.

Having been passed as "able-bodied" by the doctor, whose visit to the Receiving Ward took place at 7 o'clock, I was at last admitted to the body of the "House." An undersized inmate of villainous aspect, whose face looked as if someone had made a laudable but not altogether successful attempt to rub it out, showed me my dormitory and the bed I would occupy; informed me that smoking in the bedrooms was the blackest of crimes; and then left me to my own devices in one of the "Day Rooms" attached to the block to which I had been assigned.

My dormitory contained fourteen beds, as did all the others in this particular block. In the main block, some distance away, the dormitories are enormous, each of them containing fifty-six beds and eight efficient radiators. The bedrooms in my block, however, contained none of the latter, nor was there any hot-water supply in the washing-rooms. My bedroom had a fireplace at one end and a single electric light — at the same end, which was consequently the more popular with the permanent residents. The walls were innocent of Plaster. Distemper had been applied direct to the rough brick surface, giving the room a curiously bleak and uninviting appearance. The floor, of course, was of bare boards.

At 8 o'clock the big bell sounded, and I dragged myself, tired out in body and mind, upstairs to bed. There were no lockers in the rooms. I wondered what local etiquette demanded concerning the disposal of my clothes — my outer clothes, that is, for in a workhouse one sleeps in such of one's underclothes as one may see fit to use as night attire. The average inmate does not consider this unhealthy custom to be in any way remarkable. It has been his usual procedure all his life.

I noticed that most of my companions put their clothes under their pillows, and that the remainder spread them over their beds. I did not like the idea of putting the things I had been given to wear in any such places. The farther I could get away from them during the night the better, I thought. So I put them on the floor.

"Shouldn't put 'em there if I was you, mate," said a neighbour. "It's rainin' ard."

I wondered what connection there might be between the floor as a repository for clothes, and rain. On the following morning I found out. All night the walls of that room had streamed with water, to such an extent that in several places rivulets had formed, reaching for a considerable distance across the floor. I was later to learn that in wintry weather the thermometer upon the wall was inspected by an official once every night, and its reading noted in a book. The lowest temperature that I remember it to have recorded was 35 degrees. That was after a fire had been burning at one end of the room until 2 o'clock in the morning. I have never since discovered the precise object of the careful recording of those readings, for if the temperature had descended until the mercury froze in the bulb, no remedy could have been effected. I suppose, however, that we victims were meant to take comfort from the knowledge that the situation was being "closely watched" as Governments say when they do not know what to do.

Of the rest of that first night only one further impression remains. I realised in grateful surprise that the bed was both clean and comfortable. I had anticipated worse. Perhaps, after all, things were not going to be so very dreadful, and better days not for ever. . . . I was asleep.

At a quarter to seven next morning the big bell sounded the workhouse "Reveille," and half an hour later the general assembly for breakfast afforded me my first opportunity for a survey of my future companions. How small they were, these products of a great London slum area; small and meagre as their lives had been from babyhood. That was the first impression I received.

In the workhouse about which these notes are written some four hundred people take then meals in the large and airy — sometimes very airy — dining-hall. Others there are, many of them, to whom their meals have to be carried, but these occupy special wards, which are not my present concern.

The sexes, about equal in numbers, occupy separate halves of the hall, facing the centre, where the controlling official takes his stand. Table-cloths are, of course, conspicuous by their absence. Breakfast consists of some eight ounces of bread, half an ounce of margarine, and a pint of excessively hot brown liquid, which I heard described as "tea begrudged and water bewitched" — a comment as concise as it was accurate.

While disposing of this simple preliminary to whatever was to be my fate during my first day in the "Lump" I took a look round — and viewed ugliness in the mass. Not terrifying ugliness, nor ugliness interesting in any other way, but just plain sordid Ugliness, with no redeeming feature anywhere. There was, besides, a dullness of aspect about those rows of faces upon which I gazed that was nothing short of appalling. The only definite expression of mental activity that I could descry was here and there a flash of cunning in eyes and mouth. Beyond that all the faces seemed to portray just nothing, in various unpleasant shapes.

But suddenly my eyes lit upon a real face. Not even the owner could have entertained any illusions as to its being beautiful. But its expression of active intelligence, backed by learning, contrasted very obviously with those about it. That man became my one intimate friend until his sudden death a year later left me sorrowing and dismayed. And of his death I have something to say.

Mention has already been made of a rule, in force at any rate at the workhouse of which I write, regarding underclothing. This man, in my sincere belief, died of that rule. He was fifty-five years of age, and had resided in tropical countries for many years as the special correspondent of a great London newspaper. A literary craftsman of the first order and the possessor of a vast store of classical knowledge, he had, on arrival some months previous to myself, been set to scrub floors in the dining-hall and elsewhere. This characteristically inappropriate task — or perhaps I should say "duty," there being no task-work in workhouses today — he performed with extreme keenness and inefficiency. A feebleminded unskilled labourer could have done it much better. But then the latter could not have written the remarkable book upon which this man was engaged. The fact that the completion of that book — and consequently its writer's prospects of freedom — was seriously hampered by this daily scrubbing of floors was no concern of the officials who had deputed my friend to perform it. Their business was to see that "able-bodied" men worked. And their conception of work completed, in this instance, an outrageous and scandalous farce.

But to return to the subject of underclothing. My friend had arrived in the early summer. Shortly after my own arrival in November he made a personal application with a view to obtaining the articles necessary for winter wear. The reply he received was that he did not really feel cold but only imagined it, and with that his application was dismissed. So he went through the ensuing winter without any underclothes, engaged for several hours daily in scrubbing floors. That winter passed without obvious mishap. A little bronchial trouble at times, perhaps, but nothing very much. The following summer and autumn went by, and although the book was finished it was not yet ready for a publisher's eye. Winter came down upon us again, and one day my friend complained to me of feeling unwell. He was still scrubbing floors. After a fortnight of increasing suffering he sought, on my urgent advice, admittance to the infirmary — I beg pardon, hospital. He was informed that there were no beds available, and returned to the institution. On that same night, or rather at 2 o'clock on the following morning, I had to seek the assistance of the night watchman on his behalf. We did what we could. At nine in the morning my friend again applied for admission to the infirmary. Perhaps someone had died in the hospital overnight. At any rate he was told to go there, and allowed to find his way over by himself.

Less than twenty-four hours later he was dead. They said it was angina pectoris. Well, that may have been the immediate cause of my friend's sudden death. But I thought at the time, and I think now, that he died of that rule relating to underclothing.

Asking no pardon for this necessary digression I resume the account of my own first day in the workhouse. Following breakfast came the formality of seeing, and being seen by, the Master. That potentate tried with one practised glance to put the fear of God into me, and, I am glad to say, failed. I had been glared at by a regimental sergeant-major before now.

Upon my leaving the Master's office the senior labour-master inquired of me my occupation. I fenced the question by saying I had no trade — which was true — and was immediately relegated to the wood-shed, that home of the workhouse nondescript.

It was a long low shanty of a place, such as might have been expected from its name, and here for a fortnight I chopped wood or did not chop wood, according to my own feelings and to the complete indifference of officials and companions alike. For, as I have said, there is no task-work in these institutions to-day. Nor is the produce of workhouse labour allowed to compete, in any form, in the open market. These reforms are all to the good as far as they go, but they do not go far enough. They remove practices that were objectionable, but they do not provide more worthy practices in their stead.

The keen and willing worker should be encouraged, wherever he may be found. In an institution, however, keenness, willingness, and intelligence, rare though they be, are afforded no encouragement whatever. The power that drives the wheels of workhouse labour is "Fear of Consequences," not "Hope of Better Things." A man, for refusing to perform any particular work that may be allotted to him, may be sent to prison. On the other hand, a man who, preferring work to boredom, actually volunteers to undertake the smallest extra job, runs no inconsiderable risk of raising doubts in the minds both of his companions and the officials as to his mental condition. I have tried it, and I know.

From 8 A.M. until nearly noon on that first day I sat upon a bench converting sawn logs into sticks suitable for bundling. I remember that my chopper was both blunt and minus a proper handle. I remember several other unpleasant circumstances. But above all, I remember that I would cheerfully have bartered a year of life for a good fat box of "gaspers." At noon the bell clanged for dinner, the meal of the workhouse day, which on this occasion consisted of electrically cooked meat, steamed potatoes in their skins, and bread. Well, a meal is a meal, anyhow, even if it is thrown at you by inmate waiters, none too cleanly in their ways. One of these gentry I had noticed, earlier in the morning, helping with the disposal of the previous day's refuse, and during the meal it was further conveyed to me that he was eczematic both as to face and hands.

One merely mentions these things in passing — as the self-made merchant said to his son — not purely to disgust the reader, but because they happen to be the simple truth. If the reader be both disgusted and an actual or potential guardian, so much the better.

At 1 o'clock we wood-choppers resumed our seats, the official idea being that we should continue to prepare firewood until half-past four or so. But from the hour of two I, being green and not yet initiate, was nevertheless permitted to witness a phenomenon which would, I thought, have been of considerable interest to members of the Society for Psychical Research — namely, the gradual, almost imperceptible dematerialisation, within a period of about one hour, of some fifteen ordinary human beings. Anyway, by three o'clock I was alone in that wood-shed, wondering how the thing had been done. I was later admitted into the Circle of Adepts, and could perform the unobtrusive vanishing trick as easily and as silently as any spook.

On the first day, however, it was getting on for five o'clock before I found my way to a very large, and at that time more or less general, dayroom in another block. There I sat disconsolately, watching a number of other people doing the same thing. Some of them do it, day in and day out, for years. A few of the inmates were playing cribbage, dominoes, or draughts. Chess — which, by the way, they all call "Chest" — is unknown among them, and as for bridge, most of them have never heard of it. A yet smaller number of men were reading. Only one was writing — he whom I have already mentioned.

At half-past five came tea, the last meal of the day, and a repetition of the first. Workhouse officials would doubtless inform an inquirer that there is yet a later meal — namely, supper. Well, if a small currant bun, given out at tea-time, can be called supper, they would be right.

By a quarter past six I was in bed, warm, and able to close my eyes to things I did not wish to see. And that morning and that evening were the First Day.

 • • • •

For the following fortnight I continued my wood-chopping occupation, becoming daily more and more oppressed by a rapidly increasing sense of that which, inferentially, is next to ungodliness. On the fifteenth day, however, two memorable events occurred, Just as I was settling down to the morning's work a one-eyed inmate of methuselastic age tottered into the shed and fixed me with his single optic.

"Your name Muggins?" he inquired.

"Yes," I lied.

"Bath," he murmured mournfully, and turned to totter out again. But at that magic word I was up, out of the shed, and speeding towards the bathroom before the old boy had even reached the wood-shed door.

The probability that the three previous occupants of the bath into which I leaped had suffered from sore legs of terrifying aspect did not worry me at all, for the simple reason that such a possibility had never entered my head. Experientia docet, however, and after what I saw during the ensuing half-hour I was careful to look before I leaped.

Upon leaving the bathroom, which contained two baths for the accommodation of some three hundred men, I was informed that my next "swim" would be due a fortnight hence, "Good God!" I said. "Do you mean to say that I shall have to chop wood for the next fortnight and sleep in my underclothes all that time before I can have another bath?"

"Them's the rules," was the reply, and if you was like most of 'em 'ere you'd 'ave to be chased to it then."

I walked back to the wood-shed wondering how this new horror could be overcome. Within an hour circumstance and my own fierce determination had solved the problem.

I had hardly resumed my interesting occupation before the short, broad-shouldered, curly-headed labour-master, who possessed a smile of the "childlike and bland" variety, entered the wood-shed and beckoned to me.

"Muggins, I've got a new job for you in C. Block. You'll be under Mr B. in future. Only a bit of window-cleaning. Come on."

Mr B. was an Irishman. He possessed a very thin neck, a very soft voice, and a wife. Her voice resembled that of an exasperated colony of peacocks; but she was a capable woman, whom I had not known for a day before she had begun to confide in me concerning her lord and master's ineptitude.

Now C. Block was an enormous building, of many stairs, rooms, and windows, and each window possessed a fan-light, only to be reached by ladder. It was to be my job to keep those fan-lights clean. One man could work round the whole building in a month, they said. Mr B. accompanied me all over the block, and we eventually reached his private quarters on the top floor. He opened a door.

"This is my bathroom," he said. "Very dirty and awkward windows to get at."

I replied to the effect that if I were left alone and not fussed I would manage it somehow.

For the ensuing four months those particularly awkward windows were kept spotlessly clean, much to B.'s innocent satisfaction. As for myself — well, there are more ways of obtaining a hot bath several times a week than by waiting a fortnight for one, if the "bull" may be excused. The second day of my new occupation was very nearly the last. By the narrowest of narrow shaves I escaped a fall from a top-floor window which would have brought to a close not only my own joyous march through life but also, probably, that of the aged workhouse postman, who was creeping, like some gigantic beetle, immediately below the window at which I was working. Incidentally, I very nearly broke a rule. An inmate is not allowed to fall from the top floor of any block on to the stone flags beneath. If he does, and remains sufficiently alive to take an interest in what may follow, the responsibility is his, and he need not expect to obtain any compensation for the results of clumsiness in the performance of duties to which he may never previously have been accustomed. Any inquiries as to why compensation is unobtainable in such cases are met by the answer that no inmate can be made to climb ladders and so forth, and that he does so of his own free will. As to the number of inmates who are previously informed of this safeguarding regulation before undertaking such work I prefer to express no opinion.

However, I soon became quite skilful at my job, and received no further shocks of this particular nature. But I do not yearn to clean any more windows. It is almost as monotonous as chopping wood, and decidedly more chilly.

Here a short interlude. By this time Christmas was approaching, and one morning I was stopped in one of the yards by the assistant labour-mistress, a jolly, blue-eyed girl with a weak chin and a strong character, who asked me if I could sing! After a gasp and a breath of free workhouse air I replied that I had, of course, been aching to burst into song ever since my arrival. The girl told me not to be an ass — which was a piece of advice I had frequently received before — and added that, even if I could not sing, she wanted an intelligent man to help her train the girls for a Christmas concert. I suggested that it might be more expedient to ask one of the junior officials to oblige. She gave me shortly, succinctly, and quite unprintably, her opinion of those persons.

"So you just be nice and come along at 7 o'clock tonight," she concluded.

"What about lights out at eight?" I objected feebly.

"I've fixed all that up already with the Master. You'll be able to stay up till 10 o'clock whenever we are practising. It will do you good. Here, hide this."

And before I knew where I was I had a pound of sugar and — corn in Egypt — a large box of cigarettes under my coat.

The blarney, the obvious good-feeling, and the naively effective appeal to the inner man were irresistible, and as a matter of fact I had done a certain amount of concert work in India in the golden days. So I said I would, and did, and on Christmas night some twenty of us gave, as the Master put it on handing me what I subsequently discovered to be a perfectly vile cigar, "a damned good show." Anyhow, we made some four hundred of Life's derelicts laugh for three solid hours. As for the young labour-mistress — St Greatheart should be her name. The interlude ends.

For some four months I continued to clean windows — and to enjoy sub rosa baths — until I became so expert that I seldom needed to do much work in the afternoons. These I spent in reading what there was to read, which was not much; smoking what I had to smoke, which was less; and learning to play chess. My author friend was an expert player, and very anxious to turn me into an opponent of some sort. He possessed a most delicate and kindly sense of humour, accompanied withal by the very devil of a temper. It was like playing chess with a benevolent volcano.

I was also privileged to read and to discuss the manuscript of the book he was writing. It was one of the finest pieces of work I ever encountered. And the writer was scrubbing floors. What waste! What pitiful, damnable waste!

But suddenly for me there came a change. I was instructed, much to B.'s and my own disgust, to take over entire charge of an apartment known as the Reading Room. The fact that it contained no books was by the way, but the condition of its long-neglected linoleum floor proved to be a matter of some importance. I spent many working hours upon my hands and knees, and with the aid of innumerable swabs, bottles of turpentine, tins of imitation Ronuk, and most of the spirit remaining to me, I turned that floor into something the very sight of which induced a sense of pride even into my own despondent and gloomy soul.

I kept it so until Freedom came, over a year later.

 • • • •

Having outlined some of my own experiences in one of London's scrap-heaps, it may not be out of place if I record in detail a little of what I learned regarding internal administration and the ways of the more outstanding types of inmate.

First, I would refer to such privileges as at present exist. During the winter months it is the practice of certain amateur concert and theatrical parties to give entertainments in the house, to which all well-behaved inmates are admitted, irrespective of age or sex. These entertainments are of incalculable value in respect of the relief from monotony which they bring to darkened lives. If the inevitable fall of the curtain brings a sense of sadness, well, so does the fall of an autumn leaf. But the grateful memory of bright summer for ever remains.

The second privilege relates to tobacco. Inmates of over sixty-five years of age are given half an ounce of a commodity honoured by that name, of a perfectly furious taste and aroma, twice every week whether they work or not. No man under that age receives any tobacco at all.

Leave is the third privilege accorded to well-behaved inmates of over sixty-five. They are allowed out every Sunday from 9 A.M. until 6 P.M., and on alternate Saturdays from 1 P.M. until 6 P.M. All other inmates are only granted leave once a month, upon special application. So that a young or middle-aged able-bodied man, seeking employment, has to go through the rigmarole — occupying twenty-four hours — of obtaining his discharge whenever he wishes to go out even for a few hours. And that is not all, for should he so far presume as to take his discharge with anything approaching frequency, the usual twenty-four hours' notice is extended to three, and eventually to seven days. Hence the keener a young inmate may be to obtain regular work, the more restricted do his opportunities for seeking it become!

Now these two privileges, tobacco and leave, are connected. If a man cannot obtain a decent smoke somehow, he will smoke anything he can get and be thankful. A number of the regular leave-men, therefore, make a practice of spending their leisure hours beyond the workhouse gates in collecting from stations, bandstands, parks, and street gutters all the cigarette and cigar ends they can find. Stripped of their wrappings these discarded fragments, together with a goodly proportion of dried mud, are jumbled up into a smokable mixture known as "Hard Up" or Kerbstone Twist," and sold at an average price of about 2½d. an ounce by these enterprising merchants. At the best of times the demand in the "House" exceeds the supply, and in bad weather, when, of course, crops are ruined, stocks are at a premium or altogether lacking. It may be noted in passing that many inmates prefer this nauseous mixture to the tobacco issued by authority, which speaks volumes as to the quality of the latter.

So much for privileges. Now for some outstanding types. During my residence in the institution I met a large number of very kind and friendly folk, both young and old. I also met several human monstrosities of a dreadful nature. Between these two extremes there were many grades, but I am sorry to have to record that the prevailing spirit of the place appeared to manifest itself in the guise of four dark angels, whose names were Envy, Hatred, Malice, and Gloom. And I am certain that this impression was not simply the reflection of my own state of mind, because it remains vivid to this day.

A large number of workhouse inmates are insane. I include in this category the feeble-minded, the epileptic, and the discharged patient from a mental hospital. One man of about forty informed me that he had been A.D.C. to Sir George White during the defence of Ladysmith. Another hanged himself after a trivial row with a fellow inmate. A third would insist upon getting up at two in the morning and burning in my reading-room grate every magazine and newspaper he could find. In this connection there is another rule which I did break. An inmate is not allowed to throw another inmate out of the reading-room. A fourth tried to attack my literary friend one evening while the latter was innocently and unsuccessfully attempting to drive some of the more advanced intricacies of an "end-game" into my bemused head.

Besides the obviously unbalanced, there were numerous other men who were subject to temporary fits of curious behaviour. Many of those who look all right, work all right, and behave all right betray the probable cause of their presence in the "House" whenever they return from a day's outing. The beer and methylated spirit fiends are always waiting for them just outside the gates. The failing is but a sign of an ailment more obscure.

You may call alcoholism a vice or a disease in accordance with your dangerous ignorance or your more enlightened humanity, but that it is actually the response to a ceaseless psychological conflict within the being of the sufferer, from which respite is sought in any form, is the judgment of most reputable psychologists to-day. When Man succeeds in obtaining complete mastery over that fierce relic of his lowly past, the sub-conscious mind, then there will be no conflict, no need for temporary truce, no patched-up peace, no alcoholism. The process is likely to take some time, because if there is one word from which the average man is wont to shy more violently than from another, "psychology" is that word.

Paralysis and hernia are also very prevalent as causes of physical incapacity for work in an institution. When I say "work" I mean, of course, manual labour of some kind. Mental capacity, productive or otherwise, is regarded with the utmost suspicion, and often contempt, both by inmates and by those who should know better. But the mentality of the average workhouse official is naturally somewhat low. Otherwise he would not be working in any such depressing capacity.

We now come to the consideration of a definite type of workhouse inmate — namely, the so-called shirker, or, in local parlance, the "Willing-to-work-but-won't." These people are a curious and interesting paradox. They will go to any amount of trouble; resort to any subterfuge; undergo all permissible punishment; in short, work very hard, in order to escape the performance of any useful activity to which they may be deputed. I have watched some such cases carefully, and am absolutely certain that what is taken for laziness is a real and most pitiable mental ailment. Such men are never happy, never contented, never even resigned, and the official bullying some of them undergo only adds to their distressful condition.

I do not wish to be taken for a vapid sentimentalist in the expression of this opinion. Discipline these men need and must have; work they should do; but it should always be borne in mind that they probably never have worked on a steady job, and that they are constitutionally incapable of supporting the idea of prolonged concentration upon a task imposed as such. They should, so to speak, be introduced to work by kindness, understanding, and especially by flattery — the kind of flattery of their powers which a sensible official might employ in asking for their aid in the performance of some necessary work, for the completion of which he was responsible. They should be taught to find in work a new friend, a real interest in life, and a gracious anodyne, by means of which they may at last obtain peace of mind, self-respect, and REST from that ceaseless discontent, so terrible in its vagueness and their own inability to understand it, that had hitherto been spoiling all their lives.

Are these the councils of perfection, impossible of achievement? They are not. I have seen them employed with success over and over again in military surroundings, but I have never seen them tried in a workhouse. We come next to the cadger. There was at my home-from-home a biped — I cannot call him a man — who was surely the world's champion in this creeping art. He was nicknamed "Auntie" because he possessed one, of whom he talked continually, and upon whom he had lived, apparently, throughout his forty years.

Curiously enough, he had the profile of a delicate and beautiful youth, such as one might expect to see in a minor poet. His speech and accent betrayed distinct glimmerings of refinement.

In fact, I very strongly suspected . . . However, that was no business of mine. He had a nervous habit of biting and picking his nails that nearly drove one mad to watch. His eyes were large, dreamy, and of a beautiful blue. But his manner! What can be said about it? It was at once as ingratiating as a spaniel's, as cunning as a fox's, and as repulsive as a snake's.

For a month after his arrival the officials tried this newcomer on every job in the place, from cleaning cutlery to working in the laundry, and from each of these he was ignominiously cast forth by the official or inmate in charge with varying degrees of promptitude. He did not seem to mind what people said to him. His spiritual skin was as that of an alligator. Neither insult nor contumely could pierce it. His mind was completely insensible to the meaning of the word "No," whether accompanied by expert execration or otherwise. He would cadge and be sworn at, smile and retire — and come and cadge again. Finally, he was given up in despair by all concerned, and left to practise to his heart's content his one great accomplishment, the art of getting something for nothing. And he always succeeded in the end. He was the complete, the incomparable, the absolute CADGER.

Compared with this genius all the other professional cadgers I ever met were the merest tyros. The average specimen of that ilk is easily identifiable and as easily repulsed. The gingerly approach and greeting, the reference to the weather, the flattering remarks upon an intended victim's personal appearance and lot in comparison with his own, and finally the cadge, always in the form of a negative supposition, are the signs of his trade.

"I suppose you don't happen to have" — whatever it is he wants — "on you, mate, do you? I won't forget you when mine comes in." And so forth and so on. The trouble is that "his" never does come in; or if it does, any optimism one may have entertained as to the tenacity of his memory is speedily dispelled.

Passing over the confirmed grumblers, the workhouse lawyers, and others to whose portrayal only Dickens himself could do justice, we arrive at a human type of whom it is not pleasant even to think, far less to write, but a reference to whom is nothing less than a duty. I refer to the "Stool Pigeon," or privileged secret informer.

My dormitory housed an absolutely perfect specimen of this contemptible tribe. He was a very small shrivelled creature of some fifty years. By trade a gardener, he had early succeeded in appropriating to himself all work connected with the Master's garden and with the tomato-houses, which were under the personal supervision of the senior labour-master. He also performed all kinds of other little duties, necessitating frequent journeys to all parts of the institution, both on the male and female sides.

From sheer love of work for its own sake? Tell that to somebody of less innocence than Muggins!

One room, however, this man consistently avoided, and that was the general Day-Room. His own dull-grey skin was evidently of value in his eyes, and there were usually two or three persons in that room who would have liked to catch him there.

The man's large domed head petered away into the sharp mask of a jackal. His mouth was a lipless slit in his face, deeply scored at the corners. His nose was prominent and very narrow, and his eyes were of the palest, coldest grey. His general expression gave me the idea that he suffered from a permanent taste of bad almonds in his mouth, and though I never saw it, I think his tongue must have been of a dark and evil green. He was a human danger-signal of the most obvious sort the incarnate spirit of malice.

Everything he saw — and he saw much — he quietly conveyed to those officials who would listen to him, avoiding like poison the second labour-master, who detested the very sight of him. If he conceived a dislike for any particular inmate, he would even go so far as to invent false reports regarding him. An incident of that nature respecting myself reached my ears, and I took the opportunity of showing the informer up, and of informing the Board of Guardians, in writing, that a system of strictly anonymous spying was being practised in the "House," and encouraged by some of the staff. I do not flatter myself that any official action was taken regarding my little protest, but at any rate I was not subjected to further interference of that or any other kind during the remainder of my sojourn in Hades. I have little doubt that this particular spy still continues to earn his extra ounce of tobacco — unless, of course, he has since met a sudden and violent end.

• • • •

Consider the position of an educated man or woman in such surroundings as have been sketched. Truly, the victim of Calamity treads a bleak road, and the penalty of failure is severe. Bravely, many a victim is treading that road, and many a failure is paying that penalty. Reasonable and practicable reforms and amendments of the present system spring to the mind. The progress of time will bring these about, as it has brought others before them.. In the meanwhile victims and failures wait. Some of them still retain the last comfort of Hope.

Let all who can, help to bring this Hope to continual fruition.