I remember on one occasion a young woman marched into a café in the East End and demanded a cup of tea. She was in a parlous state as regards boots and dress generally, but her hair was only comparatively dirty, by which I mean she was not afflicted with those masses of tangled growth that have so tragic a significance. She drank her tea, seated at a table, then, having drained the last drop, she marched up to the counter.
“I haven’t got any money to pay for it,” she said; “you can send to the police if you like—I don’t mind. But I’ve had my tea,” she added, “you can’t take that from me!”
The proprietor, a polyglot of many nationalities, protested vehemently. But he did not send for the police, and when she went away he gave her some slices of liver sausage with some pickle and a fresh roll.
It is not often that you come across such understanding, and to risk getting food without money is to chance arrest. When once you have been charged at the police court the difficulties of existence are increased a hundredfold. The destitute woman, like the prostitute, once she has been charged, is liable to be run in continuously. Keep out of the police net, and if you are quiet and decently behaved, you will remain out. Once you are enmeshed, unless you are possessed of great force of will and character, you may as well give up the fight.
It is not often the destitute show any great emotion. The women who now and again get a lodging, relieve their pent-up feelings when they find themselves beneath a roof, but the woman who spends more nights in the open than nights in a shelter, has become so far doped that it is pain to her to cry. I have seen women suddenly give way to what looks like causeless anger and fall to abusing a stranger, take up a stone and throw it at a door. I have myself experienced that overwhelming desire to smash up the smug contentment of the well-fed and well-housed section of society. But of the softer feelings little is shown. When a woman gives way to tears you feel as if you had been present at some secret and terrible exposure.
It was at a poor doss house in the North of London that I saw a girl give way to sudden irrepressible grief. She was not like the woman in Kennedy Court, she was nourished on too low a diet for such vigorous display. She sat on her bed in the drab garment, discoloured by wind and weather, which had grown to her like an animal’s skin, and the tears poured down her face. She had not a handkerchief on which to wipe them, and now and again she put up her arm, with its dirty coat sleeve, and mopped her cheeks. At first we did not take any notice. It is not polite to offer sympathy or comment. But when her thin shoulders began to shake, and her hands opened and shut convulsively, we knew the breaking point was reached. She explained that her feet hurt her, and we took off the unutterable pieces of leather, bound together by string, and the rags that had once been stockings. Her feet were a mass of running sores, only the most superhuman courage could have forced her to walk upon them. We got round the old woman in charge of the place and persuaded her to produce hot water, and one of us bathed the poor feet and dried them on an apology for a towel. But we knew that in a very little while the flesh would be as discoloured and as painful as it had been. It was unthinkable that she should again put on those jagged bits of leather, those worn and evil-smelling cotton rags. Instinctively we looked at each other. There was some seven or eight women in the room, and we produced our pence and together raised about a shilling. Then a lodger found another pair of stockings in her bundle, gave them to the girl, and a spirited conversation with the woman in charge induced her to produce an aged pair of men’s boots, whose tops were not broken. We gave her fourpence for these, and another twopence for a cup of tea and a piece of bread and marge.
The girl accepted these offerings quite quietly; she was too dazed to say much, but at least we had the satisfaction of knowing that her feet would not be quite so painful, and that she would set out on her day’s tramp with at least something towards board and lodging.
And here I would beg those of my readers, who feel in any sense the desire to help their destitute sisters, to remember their perpetual need for shoes and boots. If it were possible to have some kind of clearing house, where cast-off foot gear could be deposited and sent out again to
