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[-128-]
CURIOSITIES OF "ALLEY" LIFE.*
(* "London Courts and Alleys." - Standard, August, 1875.)
DEVONSHIRE-PLACE, Old Nichol-street, Spitalfields, is a little court consisting
of perhaps a dozen houses, six on either side, with a strip of broken pavement between.
Precisely of the same type as those already described are these domiciles - mere
hutches as regards size - a tiny room above and below, with broken floors and
blackened walls and ceilings so shattered that every step overhead causes the
rotten plaster to crumble and fall, further exposing the bare ribs of lath. In
almost every case there are, upstairs as well as downstairs, lodgers, and the
parlour, which is likewise the bedroom, opens on to a few square feet of space,
where in one corner is a reeking heap of all manner of decaying vegetable matter
and fireplace refuse, and in another corner the closet. In Devonshire-place I
was made aware of a phase of the social economy of the Spitalfield slums which
was new to me.
In one house I found the "parlour," as I first thought
tenantless. There was a bedstead in the room, three-parts filling it, and a bed
which I will not attempt to describe, with a heap of ragged female attire, by
way of bedclothing. The terrible-looking old wooden bedstead was in such a
shaky condition that it had been found necessary to tie it up with bits of rope,
but even this could not induce it to stand upright on its four legs, and in the
midst of the unsightly wreck was a baby of a few months old, peacefully asleep.
Hearing me come in, the [-129-] upstairs lodger came down, and informed me that the baby's
mother was out at work.
"And what may be the rent of this little place ?" I
asked. "3s. 9d. a week."
" For the house, of course?"
"Oh, dear, no - for each room."
"3s. 9d. a week for this room ?" I repeated in
amazement.
"Well, you see, sir, it is let already furnished,"
explained the upstairs lodger.
"But where is the furniture ?"
"There it is," said she, pointing to the dreadful
bedstead and to the one wooden chair which, without the slightest reservation,
formed the whole of the furniture of the carpetless, fenderless hovel.
"That's what's called a furnished room down here, sir,
and the rent is 3s. 9d. a week, leastways, if you are weekly ; if you are
nightly, it's 9d. There's lots of the houses about here let like that. Some of
them charge 9d. a night, though you go on stopping reg'ler, and come for the
rent every day. If they trusted a whole week they wouldn't get it at all, p'raps,
so they collects it daily."
Seven shillings a week for shelter in a tenement which at its
pulling-down value would scarcely realise a five-pound note, and the use of two
bedsteads and a few rags and flock to lie on! It seemed so preposterous that I
could not believe it, but on referring the matter to a visiting clergyman of the
district, he assured me that what the woman had told me was correct In every
particular.
Immediately opposite is a narrow-mouthed alley known as
Shepherd's-court, an irregular cluster of human habitations, the sight and smell
of which are enough on an August afternoon to make one gasp for breath. There
are houses behind houses, with no rearward yard or space for privacy or decency,
and one and all are in a dilapidated state from cellar to roof and quite
[-130-] unfit to live in. There is no kind of arrangement as regards
the buildings they are erected "higgledy-piggledy;" backs to fronts,
anyhow, with narrow passages between.
Possibly the main reason why continually fever is not raging
in every alley in Old Nichol-street may be found in the fact that the water
supply is uninterrupted and unlimited. This, however, has only been so since
some ingenious person invented an apparatus by means of which this essential to
existence may be provided with certainty. Old Nichol-street is not a
particularly honest neighbourhood. There may probably be found within its limits
a greater number of thieves - petty and other - than a square mile of any other
parish could produce. Metal taps and leaden water-pipes and ball-cocks used to
vanish as soon almost as they were fixed, and even iron piping which would
realise at the shop of the marine store dealer but a few halfpence was not safe
from dishonest hands. Zinc and iron tanks, more than one man could lift, have
before now in that light-fingered region disappeared between dark and daylight,
as though they were mere portable articles that might be doubled up and stowed
in a coat pocket. A remedy, however, has been found for this uncomfortable
condition of affairs. An iron locker, about eighteen inches square, solid on all
sides, and prodigiously heavy, is supported on a firm basis. There is a spout at
the bottom of the receptacle, and at the side a massive iron knob, the turning
of which sets the water flowing. One of these contrivances is to be found in
almost every alley, and where it is not found one need only follow his nose to
discover.
The houses of Shepherd's-court are of a pattern with those of
Devonshire-place - a room up and a room down, each affording refuge for a family,
great and small, and at least three-fourths of the wretched tenants earn their
bread at home. Match-box making seems to give employment to hundreds of hands in
this squalid neighbourhood, every member of the [-131-] family, down to the little child four or five years old,
lending a hand as they squat in a ring on the filthy, uncarpeted floor. They
receive twopence halfpenny for making twelve dozen boxes, and out of this have
to provide paste. By working very hard and without reference to the clock, a
woman and three or four children so employed may earn fifteenpence a day, and
out of this the produce of two whole days' labour out of the six must go to pay
the rent of the miserable one room, which is a heated and unwholesome factory
from morning until night, and a bedchamber from night until morning.
If nothing else is done it is high time that the same humane
inspection that is vouchsafed to the common lodging-house occupant should be
extended to these private abodes of squalor and wretchedness.
There is an establishment of the kind alluded to in Old
Nichol-street, not a nice place, certainly, but cleanliness is compulsory there,
and any attempted evasion of the Common Lodging-house Act is very speedily
exposed by the bull's-eye of Mr. Inspector, who has an artful way of making his
dead-of-night visits as unexpected as possible. Though, however, the proceedings
may be strictly in accordance with the requirements of the legislature they do
not care to see strangers at these places. At the Old Nichol-street abode, for
instance, there is a printed notice conspicuous to every one who enters at the
door of the common kitchen, to the effect that, "Persons who don't lodge
here are not welcome." They keep the best possible order at this refuge for the
dissipated and poverty-stricken.
Included in the notice above alluded to is an intimation that
pelting each other with pillows and bolsters is strictly prohibited, and that
individuals who insist on adopting such an outlet for their superabundant animal
spirits will be at once expelled the premises. The rules and regulations
conclude with a hint - as delicately conveyed as possible - as to the rashness of too
[-132-] implicitly confiding in the proverb that there is honour
amongst all classes. " Beware of the cat who steals the meat ; I
wish that I could catch him," says rule the last, to which the proprietor
significantly signs his name.
Two in a bed, however, is an indecency which is not for a
single hour tolerated in places where tramps and cadgers congregate, but in
these "homes" of the people four times two may so sheep and no one
interfere. I ventured into one house in Shepherd's-court and went upstairs.
There was but one bedstead in the room-a mite of a place; I measured it with my
walking-stick and found that it was three and a half one way and four sticks the
other, and yet it was made to accommodate mother, father, and eight children;
some of course would have to lie on the bare boards, the bedstead, which was
barely of the ordinary size, could not have contained them all. The room was in
a shocking condition, with holes in the rotten floor and damp patches on the
walls and ceiling. For this the weekly rent was two-and-ninepence. But, bad as
was this up. stairs room, I would rather, if doomed to the terrible alternative,
have lived there than in the room below, and which comprised the remaining half
of the habitation.
To be sure in this last-mentioned case there were but six
children, but then their father was a cabinet-maker by trade and worked at home,
and in addition to the apartment serving as a living and sleeping room for the
eight individuals who contributed towards the unclean Shepherd's flock, it was
made to do duty as a carpenter's shop as well. It was an uglier place than the
rest, by reason of its floor being several feet below the outside mire, while
the ceiling was so how that one might lay the flat of his hand against it, and
like the upstairs room, it measured three-and-a-half walking-sticks by four.
There were pieces of mahogany in course of shaping and others in the rough, and
a large number of tools and a bench, and the floor was ankle-deep in shavings.
[-133-] There was, as usual, but one bedstead, and the bench came so
close upon it, helping to fill the narrow space, that it was difficult to
conceive how the mother - who was a stoutish woman, and at present employed at the
wash-tub in the open alley - contrived to get near the fireplace for domestic
purposes without her husband first vacating the premises. She could not climb
over the bedstead, because that was already occupied by several articles not
pertaining to repose.
"It is warm work down here, sir," remarked the little old
cabinet-maker cheerily, "but you see I'm 'bliged to keep up a good fire,
howsomever hot the weather may be, cos of my glue."
Yes, reeking hot as it was, even out in the open court, there
was a fire in the grate bright and brisk enough to roast a sucking pig, and the
frowsy bedstead came to within a yard of it, and the intervening space was
strewn ankle deep in mahogany chips and shavings as dry as tinder. Just image a
smouldering ember igniting that combustible heap, just when the weary eight were
deep in their first sleep. Eight! Eighteen in all, counting the general dealer
and his wife and their eight children overhead, and with only a cracked ceiling
and a touchwood floor between. But the little old cabinet-maker appeared to be
not in the least alive to the possibility of such a catastrophe. He grumbled at
having to pay so high a rent, but otherwise was evidently of opinion that
Shepherd's-court was an eligible locality for a family residence, and one where
a man might, if he tried, make himself very comfortable. The old cabinet-maker
had tried, and with some show pf success. He had gone in for floriculture. There
were garden-pots on his window-sill, and the presence of a small glass globe
suspended amongst them betrayed that he had even aspired to gold fish as well;
but the great fire which was so necessary for the glue had probably disagreed
with them, and for the present, at all events, the globe was empty. But the
garden was not so much on the window-[-134-]sill as on the opposite side of the way. Facing the window-
within a yard and a half of it, in fact-there was a blank wall, and to this the
cabinet-maker had affixed two long narrow boxes, and given his attention to the
cultivation of Indian corn and sunflowers in the one case, and "creeping
Jennies," and, I think, a few balsams in the other. The latter, however, were in
a state of health that occasioned him some apprehension and anxiety.
But there are plants seemingly as there are human creatures,
which are exempt from what are called the laws of nature. In this close, pent-up
place, where every respiration was an offence to the nostrils, the Indian corn
was flourishing favourably, while the sun-flowers bloomed with a blowsy
luxuriance as though their evil surroundings had quite corrupted their natural
goodness, and they had acquired a taste for tainted air, and liked it. In the
same foul alley, in an old butter tub, lashed to an upper window sill, there was
a plant of rhubarb bristling with stout stems, and with leaves large nearly as
dinner plates.
But these instances were quite exceptional, and as a rule the
only green things visible were the verdant rime with which damp had blotched the
rotten walls and the stagnant pools in the gutter. The alley-dwellers of this
part are a terribly dirty race, and in the fastnesses of their slums seem to
have deteriorated from civilisation, and gone a long way back on the road to
savagery. It would, indeed, in one respect be rather an improvement if they
would do so entirely and substitute a cheerful coating of woad or ochre for the
grim dark grey that comes of long abstinence from soap and water. But how is it
possible that cleanly habits can be cultivated in the midst of such foulness? A
new comer who resolved to set a shining example and appear with a clean face
and hands would soon grow discouraged. Nor would it be of the least use to
endeavour to improve the inhabitants as they are at present domiciled.
[-135-] Efforts have been made in this direction in one of the vilest
parts of Spitalfields. It was conceived to be worth while to set up a public
nursery for young children, where, instead of lying about in the alley gutters
while their mothers were out at work or selling things in the street, they might
he well cared for, and properly cleansed, and tended, and fed.
A home of this kind has been established in Quaker-street. A
kind and capable nurse has been appointed; there is a nice playground for fine
weather, and an admirably fitted play-room for wet weather; neat cots for the
little ones to sleep in when they are unwell, toys, clean pinafores (on loan, of
course), and warm boots; plenty of wholesome food, and all for the very small
sum of fourpence per day. But the response on the part of working mothers is not
hearty. Whether they resent the warm bath and its changeful effects on their
progeny, or whether they find it cheaper to keep their children at home, I
cannot say, but at present there have never at any time been more than seven
small customers in one day at this admirable home, and the number when I visited
it was only five.
If the Artisans' Dwellings Act prove efficacious in
remedying the shameful state of things which exists in and about Old
Nichol-street there is hope for every district in London. For many reasons one
cannot but feel anxious to see what will result from the act in question in this
neighbourhood. It is a fact, as I was informed on authority, that a very
considerable portion of court and alley property of the kind I have endeavoured
to describe belongs to gentlemen who, in some way or other, are included in the
list of "local authorities." I was shown an awful place, consisting, I
think, of eight tenements, in a secluded crevice between the front Street
houses, and known as 4and 5 Half Nichol-street. The entrance is scarcely as
wide as the passage of an ordinary house, and the residences in question have
evidently been erected in what was once the back-yard of one of the large
houses. The lower rooms of [-136-] these delectable dwellings are so low down beneath the
pavement that they are little better than cellars, with nothing tn prevent the
rain pouring into them in times of storm. These are hovels of the worst kind,
ruinous, ill-drained, and evil smelling, with a kennel of foul water in the
yard-wide path which divides the double "row." It is a marvel how the
tenants escape with their hives in such a noisome den; and yet this is the
property of a vestryman, who derives a considerable income from the exorbitant
rent exacted of the lodgers.
In Great Arthur Street, St. Luke's, there is a court called
Thomas's Court, an old place, with an iron tablet at its entrance stating its
age. The houses in Thomas's Court - which is a broad, stone-paved place, about
twenty feet wide between the dwellings, and sixty yards from end to end-have
during the last three months, been declared to be uninhabitable, and tenants
turned out. We found two workmen in the court, and one of them had just prised
up from the flagway in the middle a heavy wooden trap-door, which had been
cemented down, and the opening disclosed a gulf of at least twelve feet deep,
and extending, the men informed us, beneath the whole space and under the houses
on either side, walled in and with this only outlet. In ancient times, it seems,
the place was part of a brewery, and here beer barrels were stored; but,
strangely enough, my guide, who had known the court and its inhabitants for
fifteen years, had never heard of the existence of the vast vault, nor, to his
knowledge, were the inhabitants aware of it. I looked down into it, and by all
appearance it was an innocent place enough, but I could not help thinking to what strange
purposes it might have been put in such a neighbourhood, had evil-disposed
persons discovered it. I remarked as much to the bricklayer, but he laughed at
the idea.
"God bless you, sir, said he ; "if they'd known it they
would not have ventured into it I They was a awful supersti-[-137-]tious lot that lived down here. It has been always thought
that the court was haunted."
"But why ?"
"Well, there 'ave been suicides. A man hung himself from
that lamp-iron, and another hung himself in the parlour at that end house
-" and
just at that moment, with a startling sort of "Jack-in-the-box" movement, a
door was flung open within a yard or so, and opposite the ruined "parlour"
in question, an old woman made her appearance, chuckling with glee at what she
had overheard.
"Hallo !" exclaimed my missionary companion - they
all know him in that region - "are you here still? I thought you cleared out with
the rest?"
"Not me," replied the merry old soul, whose age must have
been at least seventy; "hauntin' and ghosts don't frighten me, I don't mind
'em; let em come if they like, I shan't go until they turn me out," and she
retired again to her snuggery, crowing triumphantly. And a brave old woman she
must be, to be able to lay her head down unconcernedly of nights the only
inhabitant of a ruined, out-of-the-way alley, mysteriously undermined, and with
ample excuse for being haunted, if it is not.
Strange trades are carried on in these slums, and occupations
are followed which in civilised parts are never dreamt of:, except it be in
exceptionally bad dreams. One does not like even to hint at the way in which
scores of poor wretches in the locality pick up a living, nor would I myself
have believed it had I not been told it as a fact, by a gentleman whose veracity
is unimpeachable. There is an awful little alley, for instance, in the
neighbourhood of Hales's tallow factory, consisting of about twenty houses,
inhabited almost entirely by folk who collect the ordure of dogs, which is used
for tanning purposes. I say that the alley in question is occupied almost
entirely by this [-138-] class, and, repulsive as the trade is, it is preferable to
that of the dreadful exceptions. There are but few left there now, I am
informed, but not very long since the residents of this delectable spot
consisted chiefly of "cat-flayers" - whose sole means of living was to go out
at night with their sacks and sticks, hunting for cats to ha slaughtered for the
sake of their skins. It is a business at which money may be made, since the
furriers will give 12s. a dozen for big and little cat-skins, as many as
may be brought them. It is unfortunate, however, that to be saleable the hide
must be taken from the body of the animal while it is in existence, and still
more so that the villainous cat-flayers are not deterred by this difficulty. I
was further informed that the neighbourhood used to be scandalised by the
presence of the flayed carcases of poor grimalkins lying about, but that now
that indecency is avoided by an economical arrangement on the part of the
flayer. He now puts his dead cats in the copper, and makes further capital of
their bones and fat.