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THE "CRAWLERS."
HUDDLED together on the workhouse steps in Short's Gardens, those
wrecks of humanity, the Crawlers of St. Giles's, may be seen both day
and night seeking mutual warmth and mutual consolation in their
extreme misery. As a rule, they are old women reduced by vice and
poverty to that degree of wretchedness which destroys even the energy
to beg. They have not the strength to struggle for bread, and prefer
starvation to the activity which an ordinary mendicant must display. As a natural consequence, they cannot obtain money for a lodging or for
food. What little charity they receive is more frequently derived from the
lowest orders. They beg from beggars, and the energetic, prosperous
mendicant is in his turn called upon to give to those who are his inferiors in
the "profession." Stale bread, half-used tea-leaves, and on gala days, the
fly-blown bone of a joint, are their principal items of diet. A broken jug, or a tea-pot
without spout or handle, constitutes the domestic crockery. In this the stale tealeaves, or, perhaps, if one of the company has succeeded in begging a penny, a
halfpenny-worth of new tea is carefully placed; then one of the women rises and
crawls slowly towards Drury Lane, where there is a coffee-shop keeper and also a
publican who take compassion on these women, and supply them gratuitously with
boiling water. Warm tea is thus procured at a minimum cost, and the poor women's
lives prolonged. But old age, and want of proper food and rest, reduces them to a
lethargic condition which can scarcely be preferable to death itself. It will be noticed
that they are constantly dozing, and yet are never really asleep. Some of them are
unable to lie down for days. They sit on the hard stone step of the workhouse, their
heads reclining on the door, and here by old custom they are left undisturbed.
Indeed, the policeman of this beat displays, I am told, much commiseration for these
poor refugees, and in no way molests them. When it rains, the door offers a little
shelter if the wind is in a favourable direction, but as a rule the women are soon
drenched, and consequently experience all the tortures of ague and rheumatism in
addition to their other ailments. Under such circumstances sound sleep is an
unknown luxury, hence that drowsiness from which they are never thoroughly
exempt. This peculiarity has earned them the nick-name of "dosses," derived from
the verb to doze, by which they are sometimes recognized. The crawlers may truly
be described as persons who sleep with one eye open. Those who seem in the
soundest sleep will look up languidly on the approach of a stranger, as if they were
always anticipating interference of some sort.
Some of these crawlers are not, however, so devoid of energy as we might at first
be led to infer. A few days' good lodging and good food might operate a marvellous
transformation. The abject misery into which they are plunged is not always self-
sought and merited; but is, as often, the result of unfortunate circumstances and accident.
The crawler, for instance, whose portrait is now before the reader, is the widow of a
tailor who died some ten years ago. She had been living with her son-in-law, a
marble stone-polisher by trade, who is now in difficulties through ill-health. It
appears, however, that, at best, "he never cared much for his work," and innumerable
quarrels ensued between him, his wife, his mother-in-law, and his brother-in-law, a
youth of fifteen. At last, after many years of wrangling, the mother, finding that her
presence aggravated her daughter's troubles, left this uncomfortable home, and with
her young son descended penniless into the street. From that day she fell lower
and lower, and now takes her seat among the crawlers of the district. Her young
son is not only helpless, but troubled with unjustifiable pride. He has pawned his
clothes, is covered with rags, but still scorns to sell matches in the street, and is
accused of giving himself airs above his station! The woman, though once able to
earn money as a tailoress, was obliged to abandon that style of work in consequence
of her weak eyesight, and now her great ambition is to "go out scrubbing." But
who will employ even for this menial purpose, a woman who has no home, no address
to give, and sleeps on the workhouse steps when she cannot gain admittance into the
casual ward? Her son, equally homeless and ragged, cannot, for the same reasons,
hope to obtain work; but, on the other hand, I convinced myself after a long
conversation, that this woman thoroughly realized her position, and had a very clear
idea as to what she should do to redeem herself. She would move heaven and earth
to obtain a few shillings, and with these would proceed to the hop-fields, where she
would earn enough to save about a pound, and one pound, she urged, would be sufficient
to start in life once more. Her son might get his clothes out of pawn, and then obtain
work. She would, on her side, rent a little room so as to have an address, and then
it would be possible for her to apply for work. Nor was this castle in the air beyond
realization. A fellow crawler, who used to doze on the same step leading to St.
Giles's workhouse, had actually obtained employment in a coffee-shop, and, while
awaiting an opportunity to follow this example, my informant was taking care of her
friend's child. This infant appears in the photograph, and is entrusted by its mother
to the tender mercies of the crawler at about ten o'clock every morning. The mother
returns from her work at four in the afternoon, but resumes her occupation at the
coffee-shop from eight to ten in the evening, when the infant is once more handed
over to the crawler, and kept out in the streets through all weathers with no extra
protection against the rain and sleet than the dirty and worn shawl which covers the
poor woman's shoulders; but, as she explained, "it pushes its little head under my
chin when it is very cold, and cuddles up to me, so that it keeps me warm as well as
itself." The child, however, cried, and wheezed, and coughed in a manner that did
not testify to the success of this expedient; but it was a wonder that, under the
conditions, the woman took care of the child at all. The only reward she receives
for the eight hours' nursing per day devoted to this little urchin, is a cup of tea and a
little bread. Even this modest remuneration is not always forthcoming, and the
crawler has often been compelled to content herself with bread without tea, or tea
without bread, so that even this, her principal and often her only meal per day, is not
always to be had.
Another well-known crawler had consented to have her portrait taken in company
with that of the woman whose circumstances I have already described, but on the
previous evening a gentleman gave her sixpence while she was strolling down
Albemarle Street. This enabled her to indulge in a night's lodging, and she was so
unaccustomed to the luxury of a bed, that she overslept herself and thus missed the
appointment! She is a tall, bony, grey-haired Scotchwoman, and wears a hideous
grey waterproof, fastened as tightly round her as is safe, considering the feeble and
worn nature of its texture. It is not known that she has any under-clothing. There
is only a muddy nondescript substance hanging loosely round the lower part of her
legs, which may be freely seen peering from under the skirt of the waterproof, while
the upper portion of her feet are covered by soleless goloshes, on the purchase of which
she actually laid out the sum of twopence. There was no certain evidence as to her
possessing anything else. "Scotty," as she is called, had recently been condemned to
pick oakum for three days in the Marylebone workhouse, as a punishment for
having sought refuge in the casual ward three times in the course of one month.
To risk what is equivalent to three days' imprisonment with hard labour, for
the sake of spending one night in a casual ward, testifies to a degree of misery and
want that beggars all description. But the horror of this picture is intensified when
we consider that it is often undeservedly endured. Scotty, for instance, is no criminal,
nor is she even a drunkard. No amount of pressure on my part could persuade her
to drink even a single glass of beer with the dinner which, of course, I found an early
opportunity of giving her. Further, she is neither stupid nor ignorant. She can
read and write well, and her language is at times even polished and refined. How,
under these circumstances, she could have become a crawler was at first an inexplicable
mystery; but gradually I discovered, one by one, the chief incidents in her career, and
it all seemed so natural that it was difficult to doubt her word.
"Scotty's" husband had been employed in a bank at Edinburgh, and, at one time,
possessed property to the value of £2000; but this was sold, and the proceeds placed
in the hands of some lawyers. I do not know whether Scotty's husband was also
born north of the Tweed, but, in any case, he was not gifted with that spirit of
economy, which, when it does not lead to the vice of meanness, is one of the chief
characteristic virtues of Scotchmen. At every moment, whenever he experienced the
least want of money, he applied to his lawyers, till at last they one day informed him
that there was none remaining. His first impression was that he had been egregiously robbed, but he had not kept any account of the sums received, and was therefore
quite helpless. The poverty-stricken couple came up to London, and Scotty soon found
herself a widow. Alone and friendless, she nevertheless bravely struggled against
adversity, and obtained work as a tailoress, but an illness almost deprived her of
her eyesight. So long as her eyes remained inflamed she was unable to work, and
consequently fell into debt, till at last she was turned out of her room and her things
seized and sold. This harshness on the part of her landlord did not, however, crush
the poor woman. She had no money to pay a week's rent in advance so as to obtain
a private room, and was therefore compelled to go to a common lodging-house; but she
determined to spend the whole of the next day searching for work, and for some more
respectable abode. During the night, however, a final catastrophe destroyed all these
hopes. A fellow-lodger stole all her clothes. Protestations and complaints were all in
vain, it was impossible to detect the thief and poor Scotty, like Cardinal
Wolsey, but
in a more literal sense, found herself left naked to her enemies. Her petticoats, under-
linen, skirt, apron, boots, all were gone, nothing but her waterproof, which fortunately
she had put over her bed, remained. In this plight it was impossible to apply for
work; no one was at hand to help or to suggest a remedy, and shiverin~ with cold
and almost naked, Scotty went out into the streets which were henceforth to become
her only home. Hunger and cold soon reduced her to still deeper gloom and
helplessness, till, at last, she gladly availed herself of the meagre shelter available on
the workhouse steps. At times the stupor that this intense suffering begets, obtains
such complete sway over her mind and body that she is unable to stand or walk, and
she has often fallen from sheer exhaustion. "But," added Scotty, "I am becoming
more accustomed to it now; I have not fallen once the whole of this week. What,
however, I cannot endure, is the awful lazy, idle life I am forced to lead; it is a
thousand times worse than the hardest labour, and I would much rather my hands
were cut, blistered, and sore with toil, than, as you see them, swollen, and red, and
smarting from the exposure to the sun, the rain, and the cold."
Gradually she seemed to recover her old energy. If she could only obtain a
decent set of clothes, she would seek employment at the army stores in Pimlico,
where she had worked in her more prosperous days. Here she could earn
seven shillings a week. An old woman whom she had met in a mission hall
had offered to share her room, a back kitchen, with her for eighteenpence a week.
Scotty had been obliged to refuse this offer, as she had no earthly prospect of being
able to pay even the eighteenpence; but, if ever she got to work again, this was the
style of arrangement she would make. Then she would spend four shillings a week
on her food, which she declared would be ample, particularly as she knew where to
get excellent porridge! There would, therefore, remain out of seven shillings per
week about eighteenpence for clothes, &c. Such was the ambition of this poor
woman, and yet, for want of the slight assistance necessary to attain this modest end,
she had been compelled to live the life of a crawler for nearly two months. Imbued
with a pride that does honour to her nationality, Scotty has stubbornly rejected all
suggestions as to her entering the workhouse, and does not, I believe, condescend to
beg. Sometimes persons take compassion on her, and seeing her forlorn appearance,
give her a few pence; but, had it been her practice to beg, she would never have
endured all the misery I have but feebly described. Perhaps, however, with the help
that will now be forthcoming, Scotty may once more resume work and leave the "dossing door."
A.S.