II.
FOUR YEARS’ MANAGEMENT OF A LONDON COURT.
(first published Macmillan's Magazine, July 1869)
FURTHER organisation in our mode of dealing with the poor
is now generally agreed to be necessary; but there is another truth less dwelt
upon, yet on the due recognition of which success equally depends. I feel most
deeply that the disciplining of our immense poor population must be effected
by individual influence; and that this power can change it from a mob of paupers
and semi-paupers into a body of self-dependent workers. It is my opinion,
further, that although such influence may be brought to bear upon them in very
various ways, it may be exercised in a very remarkable manner by persons
undertaking the oversight and management of such houses as the poor habitually
lodge in. In support of this opinion I subjoin an account of what has been
actually achieved in two very poor courts in London.
About four years ago I was put in possession of three
houses in one of the worst courts in Marylebone. Six other houses were bought
subsequently. All were crowded with inmates. The first thing to be done was to
put them in decent tenantable order. The set last purchased was a row of
cottages facing a bit of desolate ground, occupied with wretched, dilapidated
cow-sheds, manure heaps, old timber, and rubbish of every description. The
houses were in a most deplorable condition—the plaster was dropping from the
walls; on one staircase a pail was placed to catch the rain that fell through
the roof. All the staircases were perfectly dark; the banisters were gone,
having been burnt as firewood by tenants. The grates, with large holes in them,
were falling forward into the rooms.
The wash-house, full of lumber belonging to the landlord,
was locked up; thus the inhabitants had to wash clothes, as well as to cook,
eat, and sleep in their small rooms. The dust-bin, standing in the front of the
houses, was accessible to the whole neighbourhood, and boys often dragged from
it quantities of unseemly objects and spread them over the court. The state of
the drainage was in keeping with everything else. The pavement of the back-yard
was all broken up, and great puddles stood in it, so that the damp crept up the
outer walls. One large but dirty water-butt received the water laid on for the
houses; it leaked, and for such as did not fill their jugs when the water came
in, or who had no jugs to fill, there was no water. The former landlord’s
reply to one of the tenants who asked him to have an iron hoop put round the
butt to prevent leakage, was, that “if he didn’t like it” (i.e. things as
they were) “he might leave.” The man to whom this was spoken —by far the
best tenant in the place—is now with us, and often gives his spare time to
making his room more comfortable, knowing that he will be retained if he behaves
well.
This landlord was a tradesman in a small way of business
—not a cruel man, except in so far as variableness of dealing is cruelty; but
he was a man without capital to spend on Improvements, and lost an immense
percentage of his rent by bad debts. I went over the houses with him the last
day he collected his rents there, that he might introduce me to the people as
the owner of the property. He took a man with him, whom, as he confided to me,
he wished to pass off upon the people as a broker.* (*The ultimate step taken to
enforce payment of rent is to send in a broker to distrain.)
It was evident that, whether they saw through this deceit or not, they
had no experience which led them to believe he intended to carry into effect the
threats he uttered. The arrears of rent were enormous. I had been informed that
the honest habitually pay for the dishonest, the owner relying upon their
payments to compensate for all losses but I was amazed to find to what an extent
this was the case. Six, seven, or eight weeks’ rent was due from most tenants,
and in some cases very much more; whereas, since I took possession of the houses
(of which I collect the rents each week myself) I have never allowed a second
week’s rent to become due.
I think no one who has not experienced it can fully realise
the almost awed sense of joy with which one enters upon such a possession as
that above described, conscious of having the
power to set it, even partially, in order. Hopes, indeed,
there are which one dares scarcely hope; but at once one has power to say,
“Break out a window there in that dark corner; let God’s light and air
in;” or, “Trap that foul drain, and shut the poisonous miasma out;” and
one has moral power to say, by deeds which speak louder than words, “Where God
gives me authority, this, which you in your own hearts know to be wrong, shall
not go on. I would not set my conviction, however strong it might be, against
your judgment of right; but when you are doing what I know your own conscience
condemns, I, now that I have the power, will enforce right; but first I will
try whether I cannot lead you, yourselves, to arise and cast out the
sin—helping your wavering and sorely tried will by mine, which is
untempted.”
As soon as I entered into possession, each family had an
opportunity of doing better: those who would not pay, or who led clearly immoral
lives, were ejected. The rooms they vacated were cleansed; the tenants who
showed signs of improvement moved into them, and thus, in turn, an opportunity
was obtained for having each room distempered and painted. The drains were put
in order, a large slate cistern was fixed, the wash-house was cleared of its
lumber, and thrown open on stated days to each tenant in turn. The roof, the
plaster, the woodwork were repaired; the staircase-walls were distempered; new
grates were fixed; the layers of paper and rag (black with age) were torn from
the windows, and glass was put in; out of 192 panes, only 8 were unbroken. The
yard and footpath were paved.
The rooms, as a rule, were re-let at the same prices at
which they had been let before; but tenants with large families were counselled
to take two rooms, and for these much less was charged than if let singly: this
plan I continue to pursue. In-coming tenants are not allowed to take a decidedly
insufficient quantity of room, and no sub-letting is permitted. The elder
girls are employed three times a week in scrubbing the passages in the houses,
for the cleaning of which the landlady is responsible. For this work they are
paid, and by it they learn habits of cleanliness. It is, of course, within the
authority of the landlady also to insist on cleanliness of wash-houses, yards,
staircases, and staircase-windows; and even to remonstrate concerning the rooms
themselves if they are habitually dirty.
The pecuniary result has been very satisfactory. Five per
cent. interest has been paid on all the capital invested. A fund for the
repayment of capital is accumulating. A liberal allowance has been made for
repairs; and here I may speak of the means adopted for making the tenants
careful about breakage and waste. The sum allowed yearly for repairs is fixed
for each house, and if it has not all been spent in restoring and replacing, the
surplus is used for providing such additional appliances as the tenants
themselves desire. It is therefore to their interest to keep the expenditure for
repairs as low as possible; and instead of committing the wanton damage common
among tenants of their class, they are careful to avoid injury, and very
helpful in finding economical methods ~f restoring what is broken or worn out,
often doing little repairs of their own accord.
From the proceeds of the rent, also, interest has been paid
on the capital spent in building a large room where the tenants can assemble,
Classes are held there—for boys, twice weekly; for girls, once; a singing
class has just been established. A large work-class for married women and elder
girls meets once a week. A glad sight it is—the large room filled with the
eager, merry faces of the girls, from which those of the older, careworn women
catch a reflected light. It is a good time for quiet talk with them as we work,
and many a neighbourly feeling is called out among the women as they sit
together on the same bench, lend one another cotton or needles, are served by
the same hand, and look to the same person for direction. The babies are a great
bond of union: I have known the very women who not long before had been
literally fighting, sit at the work-class busily and earnestly comparing notes
of their babies’ respective history. That a consciousness of corporate life is
developed in them is shown by the not infrequent use of the expression “One of
us.”
Among the arrangements conducive to comfort and health, I
may mention that instead of the clothes being hung, as formerly, out of front
windows down against the wall, where they could not be properly purified, the
piece of ground in front of the houses is used as a drying-ground during school
hours. The same place is appropriated as a playground, not only for my younger
tenants, but for the children of the neighbouring courts. It is a space walled
round, where they can play in safety. Hitherto, games at trap, bat and ball,
swinging, skipping, and singing a few Kinder-Garten songs with movements in
unison, have been the main diversions. But I have just established drill for the
boys, and a drum and fife band. Unhappily, the mere business connected with the
working of the houses has occupied so much time, that the playground has been
somewhat neglected; yet it is a most important part of the work. The evils of
the streets and courts are too evident to need explanation. In the playground
are gathered together children habitually dirty, quarrelsome, and violent. They
come wholly ignorant of games, and have hardly self-control enough to play at
any which have an object or require effort. Mere senseless, endless repetition
is at best their diversion. Often the games are only repetitions of
questionable sentences. For instance, what is to be said of a game the whole
of which consists in singing, “Here comes my father all down the hill, all
down the hill” (over and over again), and replying, “We won’t get up for
his ugly face—ugly face” (repeated ad libitum)? Then come the mother, the
sister, the brother, to whom the same words are addressed. Finally the lover
comes, to whom the greeting is, “We will get up for his pretty face.” This
was, perhaps, the best game the children knew, yet, in as far as it had any
meaning or influence, it must be bad. Compare it, or the wild, lawless
fighting or gambling, with a game at trap, arranged with ordered companions,
definite object, and progressive skill. The moral influence depends, however, on
having ladies who will go to the playground, teach games, act as umpires, know
and care for the children. These I hope to find more and more. Until now, except
at rare intervals, the playground has been mainly useful for the fresh air it
affords to the children who are huddled together by night in small rooms, in the
surrounding courts. The more respectable parents keep them indoors, even in
the daytime, after school-hours, to prevent their meeting with bad companions.
Mr. Ruskin, to whom the whole undertaking owes its
existence, has had trees planted in the playground, and creepers against the
houses. In May, we have a May-pole or a throne covered with flowers for the
May-queen and her attendants. The sweet luxuriance of the spring flowers is more
enjoyed in that court than would readily be believed. Some months after the
first festival the children were seen sticking a few faded flowers into a
crevice in the wall, saying they wanted to make it “like it was the day we had
the May-pole.”
I have tried, as far as opportunity has permitted, to
develop the love of beauty among my tenants. The poor of London need joy and
beauty in their lives. There is no more true and eternal law to be recognised
about them than that which Mr. Dickens shows in “Hard Times “—the fact
that every man has an imagination which needs development and satisfaction. Mr.
Slearey’s speech, “People mutht be amoothed, Thquire,” is often recalled
to my mind in dealing with the poor. They work hard; their lives are monotonous;
they seek low places of amusement; they break out into lawless “sprees.”
Almost all amusements—singing, dancing, acting, expeditions into the country,
eating and drinking—are liable to abuse; no rules are subtle enough to prevent
their leading to harm. But if a lady can know the individuals, and ask them as
her invited guests to any of these, an innate sense of honour and respect
preserves the tone through the whole company. Indeed, there can hardly be a
more proudly thankful moment than that, when we see these many people, to whom
life is dull and full of anxiety, gathered together around us for holy, happy
Christmas festivities, or going out to some fair and quiet spot in the bright
summer time, bound to one another by the sense of common relationship, preserved
unconsciously from wrong by the presence of those whom they love and who love
them. Such intervals of bright joy are easily arranged by friends for friends;
but if strangers are invited en masse, it is difficult to keep any of these
recreations innocent.
All these ways of meeting are invaluable as binding us
together; still they would avail little were it not for the work by which we are
connected, for the individual care each member of the little circle receives.
Week by week, when the rents are collected, an opportunity of seeing each family
separately occurs. There are a multitude of matters to attend to. First, there
is the mere outside business—rent to be received, requests from the tenant
respecting repairs to be considered; sometimes decisions touching the
behaviour of other tenants to be made, sometimes rebukes for untidiness to be
administered. Then come the sad or joyful remarks about health or work, the
little histories of the week. Sometimes grave questions arise about important
changes in the life of the family—shall a daughter go to service? or shall the
sick child be sent to a hospital? etc.
Sometimes violent quarrels must be allayed. Much may be
done in this way, so ready is the response in these affectionate natures to
those whom they trust and love. For instance: two women among my tenants fought;
one received a dreadful kick, the other had hair torn from her head. They were
parted by a lad who lived in the house. The women occupied adjoining rooms, they
met in the passages, they used the same yard and wash-house, endless were the
opportunities of collision while they were engaged with each other. For ten days
I saw them repeatedly; I could in no way reconcile them—words of rage and
recrimination were all that they uttered; while the hair, which had been
carefully preserved by the victim, was continually exhibited to me as a
sufficient justification for lasting anger. One was a cold, hard,
self-satisfied, well-to-do woman; the other a nervous, affectionate, passionate,
very poor Irish-woman. Now it happened that in speaking to the latter one
evening, I mentioned my own grief at the quarrel; a look of extreme pain came
over her face—it was a new idea to her that I should care. That, and no sense
of the wrong of indulging an evil passion, touched her. The warm-hearted
creature at once promised to shake hands with her adversary; but she had already
taken out a summons against the other for assault, and did not consider she
could afford to make up the quarrel because it implied losing the two shillings
the summons had cost. I told her the loss was a mere nothing to her if weighed
in the balance with peace, but that I would willingly pay it. It only needed
that one of the combatants should make the first step towards reconciliation for
the other—who, indeed, rather dreaded answering the summons—to meet her
half-way. They are good neighbours now of some months’ standing. A little
speech, which shows the character of the Irishwoman, is worth recording.
Acknowledging to me that she was very passionate, she said: “My husband never
takes my part when I’m in my tanthrums, and I’m that mad with him; but,
bless you, I love him all the better afterwards; he knows well enough it would
only make me worse.” I may here observe that the above-mentioned two shillings
is the only money I ever had to give to either woman. It is on such
infinitesimally small actions that the success of the whole work rests.
My tenants are mostly of a class far below that of
mechanics. They are, indeed, of the very poor. And yet, although the gifts they
have received have been next to nothing, none of the families who have passed
under my care during the whole four years have continued in what is called
“distress,” except such as have been unwilling to exert themselves. Those
who will not exert the necessary self-control cannot avail themselves of the
means of livelihood held out to them. But, for those who are willing, some small
assistance in the form of work has, from time to time, been provided—not much,
but sufficient to keep them from want or despair. The following will serve as an
instance of the sort of help given, and its proportion to the results.
Alice, a single woman, of perhaps fifty-five years, lodged
with a man and his wife—the three in one room—just before I obtained full
possession of the houses. Alice, not being able to pay her rent, was turned into
the street, where Mrs. S.—my playground superintendent—met her, crying
dreadfully.
It was Saturday, and I had left town till Monday. Alice had
neither furniture to pawn nor friends to help her; the workhouse alone lay
before her. Mrs. S. knew that I esteemed her as a sober, respectable,
industrious woman, and therefore she ventured to express to Alice’s landlord
the belief that I would not let him lose money if he would let her go back to
her lodging till Monday, when I should return home, thus risking for me a
possible loss of fourpence—not very ruinous to me, and a sum not impossible
for Alice to repay in the future.
I gave Alice two days’ needlework, then found her
employment in tending a bedridden cottager in the country, whose daughter (in
service) paid for the nursing. Five weeks she was there, working and saving her
money. On her return I lent her what more she required to buy furniture, and
then she took a little room direct from me. Too blind to do much household work,
but able to sew almost mechanically, she just earns her daily bread by making
sailors’ shirts, but her little home is her own, and she loves it dearly; and,
having tided over that time of trial, Alice can live—has paid all her debts
too, and is more grateful than she would have been for many gifts.
At one time I had a room to let which was ninepence a week
cheaper than the one she occupied. I proposed to her to take it; it had,
however, a different aspect, getting less of the southern and western sunlight.
Alice hesitated long, and asked me to decide, which I declined to do; for, as I
told her, her moving would suit my arrangements rather better. She, hearing
that, wished to move; but I begged her to make her decision wholly irrespective
of my plans. At last she said, very wistfully, “Well, you see, miss, it’s
between ninepence and the sun.” Sadly enough, ninepence had to outweigh the
sun.
My tenants are, of course, encouraged to save their money.
It should, however, be remarked that I have never succeeded in getting them to
save for old age. The utmost I have achieved is that they lay by sufficient
either to pay rent in times of scarcity, to provide clothes for girls going to
service, or boots, or furniture, or even to avail themselves of opportunities
of advancement which must be closed to them if they had not a little reserve
fund to meet expenses of the change.
One great advantage arising from the management of the
houses is that they form a test-place, in which people may prove themselves
worthy of higher situations. Not a few of the tenants have been persons who had
sunk below the stratum where once they were known, and some of these, simply by
proving their character, have been enabled to regain their former stations. One
man, twenty years ago, had been a gentleman’s servant, had saved money, gone
into business, married, failed, and then found himself out of the groove of
work. When I made his acquaintance he was earning a miserable pittance for his
wife and seven unhealthy children, and all the nine souls were suffering and
sinking unknown. After watching and proving him for three years, I was able to
recommend him to a gentleman in the country, where now the whole family are
profiting by having six rooms instead of one, fresh air, and regular wages.
But it is far easier to be helpful than to have patience
and self-control sufficient, when the times come, for seeing suffering and not
relieving it. And yet the main tone of action must be severe. There is much of
rebuke and repression needed, although a deep and silent under-current of
sympathy and pity may flow beneath. If the rent is not ready, notice to quit
must be served. The money is then almost always paid, when the notice is, of
course, withdrawn. Besides this inexorable demand for rent (never to be relaxed
without entailing cumulative evil on the defaulter, and setting a bad example,
too readily followed by others), there must be a perpetual crusade carried on
against small evils—very wearing sometimes. It is necessary to believe that in
thus setting in order certain spots on God’s earth, still more in presenting
to a few of His children a somewhat higher standard of right, we are doing His
work, and that He will not permit us to lose sight of His large laws, but will
rather make them evident to us through the small details.
The resolution to watch pain which cannot be radically
relieved except by the sufferer himself is most difficult to maintain. Yet it
is wholly necessary in certain cases not to help. Where a man persistently
refuses to exert himself, external help is worse than useless. By withholding
gifts we say to him in action more mournful than words: “You will not do
better. I was ready—I will be ready whenever you come to yourself; but until
then you must pursue your own course.” This attitude has often to be taken;
but it usually proves a summons to a more energetic spirit, producing nobler
effort in great matters, just as the notice to quit arouses resolution and
self-denial in pecuniary concerns.
Coming together so much as we do for business with mutual
duties, for recreation with common joy, each separate want or fault having been
dealt with as it arose, it will be readily understood that in such a crisis as
that which periodically occurs in the East-end of London, instead of being
unprepared, I feel myself somewhat like an officer at the head of a
well-controlled little regiment, or, more accurately, like a country proprietor
with a moderate number of well-ordered tenants.
For, firstly, my people are numbered; not merely counted,
but known, man, woman, and child. I have seen their self-denying efforts to pay
rent in time of trouble, or their reckless extravagance in seasons of abundance;
their patient labour, or their failure to use the self-control necessary to the
performance of the more remunerative kinds of work; their efforts to keep
their children at school, or their selfish, lazy way of living on their
children’s earnings. Could anyone, going suddenly among even so small a number
as these thirty-four families—however much penetration and zeal he might
possess—know so accurately as I what kind of assistance would be really
helpful, and not corrupting? And if positive gifts must be resorted to, who can
give them with so little pain to the proud spirit, so little risk of undermining
the feeble one, as the friend of old standing ?—the friend, moreover, who has
rigorously exacted the fulfilment of their duty in punctual payment of rent;
towards whom, therefore, they might feel that they had done what they could
while strength lasted, and need not surely be ashamed to receive a little bread
in time of terrible want?
But it ought hardly ever to come to an actual doling out of
bread or alms of any kind. During the winter of 1867—68, while the newspapers
were ringing with appeals in consequence of the distress prevalent in the
metropolis, being on the Continent, and unable to organise more satisfactory
schemes of assistance, I wrote to the ladies who were superintending the houses
for me, to suggest that a small fund (which had accumulated from the rents,
after defraying expenses and paying interest) should be distributed in gifts to
any of the families who might be in great poverty. The answer was that there
were none requiring such help. Now, how did this come to pass?
Simply through the operation of the various influences
above described. The tenants never having been allowed to involve themselves in
debt for rent (now and then being supplied with employment to enable them to
pay it), they were free from one of the greatest drags upon a poor family, and
had, moreover, in times of prosperity been able really to save. It is but too
often the case that, even when prosperous times come, working people cannot lay
by, because then they have to pay off arrears of rent. The elder girls, too,
were either in service or quite ready to go; and so steady, tidy, and
respectable as to be able to fill good situations. This was owing, in many
cases, to a word or two spoken long before, urging their longer attendance at
school, or to their having had a few happy and innocent amusements provided for
them, which had satisfied their natural craving for recreation, and had
prevented their breaking loose in search of it. Health had been secured by an
abundance of air, light, and water. Even among this very lowest class of people,
I had found individuals whom I could draft from my lodging-houses into resident
situations (transplanting them thus at once into a higher grade), simply because
I was able to say, “I know them to be honest, I know them to be clean.”
Think of what this mere fact of being known is to the poor!
You may say, perhaps, “This is very well as far as you
and your small knot of tenants are concerned, but how does it help us to deal
with the vast masses of poor in our great towns?” I reply, “Are not the
great masses made up of many small knots? Are not the great towns divisible into
small districts? Are there not people who would gladly come forward to undertake
the systematic supervision of some house or houses, if they could get authority
from the owner? And why should there not be some way of registering such
supervision, so that, bit by bit, as more volunteers should come forward, the
whole metropolis might be mapped out, all the blocks fitting in like little bits
of mosaic to form one connected whole?”
The success of the plan does not depend entirely upon the
houses being the property of the superintendent. I would urge people, if
possible, to purchase the houses of which they undertake the charge; but, if
they cannot, they may yet do a valuable little bit of work by registering a
distinct declaration that they will supervise such and such a house, or row, or
street; that if they have to relinquish the work they will say so; that if it
becomes too much for them, they will ask for help; that anyone desiring
information about the families dwelling in the houses they manage may apply to
them.
It is well known that the societies at work among the poor
are so numerous, and labour so independently of each other, that, at present,
many sets of people may administer relief to a given family in one day, and
perhaps not one go near them again for a long interval; yet each society may be
quite systematic in its own field of operation. It seems to me, that though
each society might like to go its own way (and, perhaps, to supply wants which
the house-overseer might think it best to leave unsupplied), they might at least
feel it an advantage to know of a recognised authority, from whom particulars
could be learned respecting relief already given, and the history of the
families in question.
Any persons accustomed to visit among the poor in a large
district would, I believe, when confining themselves to a much smaller one, be
led, if not to very unexpected conclusions, at least to very curious problems.
In dealing with a large number of cases the urgency is so great one passes over
the most difficult questions to work where sight is clear; and one is apt to
forget Sissy Jupe’s quick sympathetic perception that percentage signifies
literally nothing to the friends of the special sufferer, who surely is not
worth less than a sparrow. The individual case, if we cared enough for it, would
often give us the key to many.
Whoever will limit his gaze to a few persons, and try to
solve the problem of their lives—planning, for instance, definitely, how he,
even with superior advantages of education, self-control, and knowledge, could
bring up a given family on given wages, allowing the smallest amount conceivably
sufficient for food, rent, clothes, fuel, and the rest—he may find it in most
cases a much more difficult thing than he had ever thought, and sometimes,
maybe, an impossibility. It may lead to strange self-questioning about wages.
Again, if people will watch carefully the different effect of self-help and of
alms, how the latter, like the outdoor relief system under the old Poor Law,
tends to lower wages, and undermines the providence of the poor, it may make
them put some searching questions to themselves upon the wisdom of backing up
wages with gifts. Then they may begin to consider practically whether in their
own small sphere they can form no schemes of help, which shall be life-giving,
stimulating hope, energy, foresight, self-denial, and choice of right rather
than wrong expenditure.
They may earnestly strive to discover plans of help which
shall free them from the oppressive responsibility of deciding whether aid is
deserved—a question often complicated inextricably with another, namely,
whether at a given moment there is a probability of reformation. All of us have
felt the impossibility of deciding either question fairly, yet we have been
convinced that gifts coming at the wrong time are often deadly. Earnest workers
feel a heavy weight on their hearts and consciences from the conviction that the
old command, “Judge not,” is a divine one, and yet that the distribution of
alms irrespective of character is fatal. These difficulties lead to variable
action, which is particularly disastrous with the poor. But there are plans
which cultivate the qualities wherein they are habitually wanting, namely,
self-control, energy, prudence, and industry; and such plans, if we will do
our part, may be ready at any moment for even the least deserving, and for those
who have fallen lowest.
Further details as to modes of help must vary infinitely
with circumstances and character. But I may mention a few laws which become
clearer and clearer to me as I work.
It is best strictly to enforce fulfilment of all such
duties as payment of rent, etc.
It is far better to give work than either money or goods.
It is most helpful of all to strengthen by sympathy and
counsel the energetic effort which shall bear fruit in time to come.
It is essential to remember that each man has his own view
of his life, and must be free to fulfil it; that in many ways he is a far better
judge of it than we, as he has lived through and felt what we have only seen.
Our work is rather to bring him to the point of considering, and to the spirit
of judging rightly, than to consider or judge for him.
The poor of London (as of all large towns) need the
development of every power which can open to them noble sources of joy.