It should not be difficult to arrange such a distribution at the lodging houses licensed by the London County Council, if and when that body institutes a proper system of inspection. As things are, it seems to me highly improbable that the managers or proprietors of these places would concern themselves as to which of their casual inmates wanted boots.
Another alternative would be to establish a place apart from any lodging house, where, for a few pence—or for nothing—derelicts could get covering for their feet. It is, at any rate, worth consideration, for the outlay would be very small, and many of those who at present devote quite large sums to the support of what are termed organised charities, would find that the reduction of comparatively a few shillings from their cheques, would result in that direct alleviation which is the object of the generous-minded.
I have not yet discovered any shelter or lodging house where such help is forthcoming. The Salvation Army Centre in Mare Street do their best to deal with human down and outs, and if they are employable, will find them work and supply a wardrobe. But, as I have said, a very large proportion of the women who walk the pavements have gone beyond regularised assistance, and before they could fit themselves for work, they would have to be found some tiny home of their own where they could recover their powers of resistance. Meanwhile, they endure physical hardships which could be alleviated by a small expenditure of money and the cost of some trouble and thought. Once you have seen the feet of the outcast, you realise the most burning and most practical thing to do, next to the provision of a bed, is to find boots.
The homeless are, I admit, difficult to help through the ordinary channels. People who come under sectional headings—discharged prisoners, convicted prostitutes, unmarried mothers—are more easily assisted. Human nature has a weakness for labels. It is distressed, almost affronted, by the silence of apparently inexplicable human wreckage.
“I always ask one of these women you speak of, what is wrong with her,” said a very kindly friend of mine. “But they never will tell me anything. I give them money and buy their matches or anything they have to sell, and I always try to have a little talk with them, but they won’t answer. I ask them where they’re going to sleep, and if they’ve walked far, and they just mumble something and move away.”
I suppose it is difficult if you have never been within a mile of destitution to realise how completely you are cut off from the common channels of communication. The poor women my friend referred to, very probably, did not know exactly where they had come from; they certainly did not know where they would sleep. Further, they associate interrogation with officialdom, and the never absent fear of the institution governs their mind. If they say nothing, little can be proved against them. Once they give an account of themselves they may be caught out in a lie, and between a false statement and a policeman there is a pitifully short distance. You must never hope to learn by direct question. The only way you can find out the truth is to go down into the depths, lead their lives and endure their privations.
XIII
The Trap of the Institution
When I began this account of my experiences, I made the point that it was impossible for a woman without a reference or a friendly recommendation to find employment of a regular and recognised description. I steadily tried to get some sort of daily work, but all I succeeded in obtaining was, as I have said, occasional charing jobs, the cleaning of steps, and washing up in a cheap restaurant. And, meanwhile—and I want to emphasise this point—I had a skilled trade at my fingers’ ends. I can cook sufficiently well to get a situation tomorrow, backed up by a personal character from an employer or a friend. But, because I could produce no such proofs of honesty, I was compelled to earn my bread from a different angle.
It may be, and has been, argued that to take a strange woman into your house is to court disaster, it being the explicit belief of ninety people out of every hundred that unrecommended humanity is inevitably dishonest. Indeed, the faith in what is known as a “character” is almost touching in its innocence. Few women give an entirely truthful estimate of their late employee, a wholesome fear of an action for slander restrains the expression of some of their opinions, while fundamental good-heartedness acts as a similar deterrent. For this reason indifferent cooks get situation after situation, and complacently impair the digestions and spoil the tempers of countless families. It occurs to me that it should not need very great courage to engage a woman on probation, so to speak, and set her to cook a specimen meal. If she is adequate, she might be retained, even if such retention meant keeping a close eye on the silver. It would not call for a very great display of trust to adopt this course, remembering how blindly the majority
