"But you can't do it, you know," friends said, to whom I applied for
assistance in the matter of sinking myself down into the East End of
London. "You had better see the police for a guide,"
they added, on
second thought, painfully endeavouring to adjust themselves to the
psychological processes of a madman who had come to them with better
credentials than brains.
"But I don't want to see the police," I protested.
"What I wish to do is
to go down into the East End and see things for myself.
I wish to know
how those people are living there, and why they are living there, and
what they are living for. In short, I am going to live there myself."
"You don't want to _live_ down there!" everybody said, with
disapprobation writ large upon their faces. "Why, it is said there are
places where a man's life isn't worth tu'pence."
"The very places I wish to see," I broke in.
"But you can't, you know," was the unfailing rejoinder.
"Which is not what I came to see you about," I answered brusquely,
somewhat nettled by their incomprehension. "I am a stranger here, and I
want you to tell me what you know of the East End, in order that I may
have something to start on."
"But we know nothing of the East End. It is over there, somewhere." And
they waved their hands vaguely in the direction where the sun on rare
occasions may be seen to rise.
"Then I shall go to Cook's," I announced.
"Oh yes," they said, with relief. "Cook's will be sure to know."
But O Cook, O Thomas Cook & Son, path-finders and trail-clearers, living
sign-posts to all the world, and bestowers of first aid to bewildered
travellers--unhesitatingly and instantly, with ease and celerity, could
you send me to Darkest Africa or Innermost Thibet, but to the East End of
London, barely a stone's throw distant from Ludgate Circus, you know not
the way!
"You can't do it, you know," said the human emporium of routes and fares
at Cook's Cheapside branch. "It is so--hem--so unusual."
"Consult the police," he concluded authoritatively, when I had persisted.
"We are not accustomed to taking travellers to the East End; we receive
no call to take them there, and we know nothing whatsoever about the
place at all."
"Never mind that," I interposed, to save myself from being swept out of
the office by his flood of negations. "Here's something you can do for
me. I wish you to understand in advance what I intend doing, so that in
case of trouble you may be able to identify me."
"Ah, I see! should you be murdered, we would be in position to identify
the corpse."
He said it so cheerfully and cold-bloodedly that on the instant I saw my
stark and mutilated cadaver stretched upon a slab where cool waters
trickle ceaselessly, and him I saw bending over and sadly and patiently
identifying it as the body of the insane American who _would_ see the
East End.
"No, no," I answered; "merely to identify me in case I get into a scrape
with the 'bobbies.'" This last I said with a thrill; truly, I was
gripping hold of the vernacular.
"That," he said, "is a matter for the consideration of the Chief Office."
"It is so unprecedented, you know," he added apologetically.
The man at the Chief Office hemmed and hawed. "We make it a rule," he
explained, "to give no information concerning our clients."
"But in this case," I urged, "it is the client who requests you to give
the information concerning himself."
Again he hemmed and hawed.
"Of course," I hastily anticipated, "I know it is unprecedented, but--"
"As I was about to remark," he went on steadily, "it is unprecedented,
and I don't think we can do anything for you."
However, I departed with the address of a detective who lived in the East
End, and took my way to the American consul-general.
And here, at last,
I found a man with whom I could "do business." There was no hemming and
hawing, no lifted brows, open incredulity, or blank amazement. In one
minute I explained myself and my project, which he accepted as a matter
of course. In the second minute he asked my age, height, and weight, and
looked me over. And in the third minute, as we shook hands at parting,
he said: "All right, Jack. I'll remember you and keep track."
I breathed a sigh of relief. Having burnt my ships behind me, I was now
free to plunge into that human wilderness of which nobody seemed to know
anything. But at once I encountered a new difficulty in the shape of my
cabby, a grey-whiskered and eminently decorous personage who had
imperturbably driven me for several hours about the
"City."
"Drive me down to the East End," I ordered, taking my seat.
"Where, sir?" he demanded with frank surprise.
"To the East End, anywhere. Go on."
The hansom pursued an aimless way for several minutes, then came to a
puzzled stop. The aperture above my head was uncovered, and the cabman
peered down perplexedly at me.
"I say," he said, "wot plyce yer wanter go?"
"East End," I repeated. "Nowhere in particular. Just drive me around
anywhere."
"But wot's the haddress, sir?"
"See here!" I thundered. "Drive me down to the East End, and at once!"
It was evident that he did not understand, but he withdrew his head, and
grumblingly started his horse.
Nowhere in the streets of London may one escape the sight of abject
poverty, while five minutes' walk from almost any point will bring one to
a slum; but the region my hansom was now penetrating was one unending
slum. The streets were filled with a new and different race of people,
short of stature, and of wretched or beer-sodden appearance. We rolled
along through miles of bricks and squalor, and from each cross street and
alley flashed long vistas of bricks and misery. Here and there lurched a
drunken man or woman, and the air was obscene with sounds of jangling and
squabbling. At a market, tottery old men and women were searching in the
garbage thrown in the mud for rotten potatoes, beans, and vegetables,
while little children clustered like flies around a festering mass of
fruit, thrusting their arms to the shoulders into the liquid corruption,
and drawing forth morsels but partially decayed, which they devoured on
the spot.
Not a hansom did I meet with in all my drive, while mine was like an
apparition from another and better world, the way the children ran after
it and alongside. And as far as I could see were the solid walls of
brick, the slimy pavements, and the screaming streets; and for the first
time in my life the fear of the crowd smote me. It was like the fear of
the sea; and the miserable multitudes, street upon street, seemed so many
waves of a vast and malodorous sea, lapping about me and threatening to
well up and over me.
"Stepney, sir; Stepney Station," the cabby called down.
I looked about. It was really a railroad station, and he had driven
desperately to it as the one familiar spot he had ever heard of in all
that wilderness.
"Well," I said.
He spluttered unintelligibly, shook his head, and looked very miserable.
"I'm a strynger 'ere," he managed to articulate. "An'
if yer don't want
Stepney Station, I'm blessed if I know wotcher do want."
"I'll tell you what I want," I said. "You drive along and keep your eye
out for a shop where old clothes are sold. Now, when you see such a
shop, drive right on till you turn the corner, then stop and let me out."
I could see that he was growing dubious of his fare, but not long
afterwards he pulled up to the curb and informed me that an old-clothes
shop was to be found a bit of the way back.
"Won'tcher py me?" he pleaded. "There's seven an' six owin' me."
"Yes," I laughed, "and it would be the last I'd see of you."
"Lord lumme, but it'll be the last I see of you if yer don't py me," he
retorted.
But a crowd of ragged onlookers had already gathered around the cab, and
I laughed again and walked back to the old-clothes shop.
Here the chief difficulty was in making the shopman understand that I
really and truly wanted old clothes. But after fruitless attempts to
press upon me new and impossible coats and trousers, he began to bring to
light heaps of old ones, looking mysterious the while and hinting darkly.
This he did with the palpable intention of letting me know that he had
"piped my lay," in order to bulldose me, through fear of exposure, into
paying heavily for my purchases. A man in trouble, or a high-class
criminal from across the water, was what he took my measure for--in
either case, a person anxious to avoid the police.
But I disputed with him over the outrageous difference between prices and
values, till I quite disabused him of the notion, and he settled down to
drive a hard bargain with a hard customer. In the end I selected a pair
of stout though well-worn trousers, a frayed jacket with one remaining
button, a pair of brogans which had plainly seen service where coal was
shovelled, a thin leather belt, and a very dirty cloth cap. My
underclothing and socks, however, were new and warm, but of the sort that
any American waif, down in his luck, could acquire in the ordinary course
of events.
"I must sy yer a sharp 'un," he said, with counterfeit admiration, as I
handed over the ten shillings finally agreed upon for the outfit.
"Blimey, if you ain't ben up an' down Petticut Lane afore now. Yer
trouseys is wuth five bob to hany man, an' a docker 'ud give two an' six
for the shoes, to sy nothin' of the coat an' cap an' new stoker's singlet
an' hother things."
"How much will you give me for them?" I demanded suddenly. "I paid you
ten bob for the lot, and I'll sell them back to you, right now, for
eight! Come, it's a go!"
But he grinned and shook his head, and though I had made a good bargain,
I was unpleasantly aware that he had made a better one.
I found the cabby and a policeman with their heads together, but the
latter, after looking me over sharply, and particularly scrutinizing the
bundle under my arm, turned away and left the cabby to wax mutinous by
himself. And not a step would he budge till I paid him the seven
shillings and sixpence owing him. Whereupon he was willing to drive me
to the ends of the earth, apologising profusely for his insistence, and
explaining that one ran across queer customers in London Town.
But he drove me only to Highbury Vale, in North London, where my luggage
was waiting for me. Here, next day, I took off my shoes (not without
regret for their lightness and comfort), and my soft, grey travelling
suit, and, in fact, all my clothing; and proceeded to array myself in the
clothes of the other and unimaginable men, who must have been indeed
unfortunate to have had to part with such rags for the pitiable sums
obtainable from a dealer.
Inside my stoker's singlet, in the armpit, I sewed a gold sovereign (an
emergency sum certainly of modest proportions); and inside my stoker's
singlet I put myself. And then I sat down and moralised upon the fair
years and fat, which had made my skin soft and brought the nerves close
to the surface; for the singlet was rough and raspy as a hair shirt, and
I am confident that the most rigorous of ascetics suffer no more than I
did in the ensuing twenty-four hours.
The remainder of my costume was fairly easy to put on, though the
brogans, or brogues, were quite a problem. As stiff and hard as if made
of wood, it was only after a prolonged pounding of the uppers with my
fists that I was able to get my feet into them at all.
Then, with a few
shillings, a knife, a handkerchief, and some brown papers and flake
tobacco stowed away in my pockets, I thumped down the stairs and said
good-bye to my foreboding friends. As I paused out of the door, the
"help," a comely middle-aged woman, could not conquer a grin that twisted
her lips and separated them till the throat, out of involuntary sympathy,
made the uncouth animal noises we are wont to designate as "laughter."
No sooner was I out on the streets than I was impressed by the difference
in status effected by my clothes. All servility vanished from the
demeanour of the common people with whom I came in contact. Presto! in
the twinkling of an eye, so to say, I had become one of them. My frayed
and out-at-elbows jacket was the badge and advertisement of my class,
which was their class. It made me of like kind, and in place of the
fawning and too respectful attention I had hitherto received, I now
shared with them a comradeship. The man in corduroy and dirty
neckerchief no longer addressed me as "sir" or
"governor." It was "mate"
now--and a fine and hearty word, with a tingle to it, and a warmth and
gladness, which the other term does not possess.
Governor! It smacks of
mastery, and power, and high authority--the tribute of the man who is
under to the man on top, delivered in the hope that he will let up a bit
and ease his weight, which is another way of saying that it is an appeal
for alms.
This brings me to a delight I experienced in my rags and tatters which is
denied the average American abroad. The European traveller from the
States, who is not a Croesus, speedily finds himself reduced to a chronic
state of self-conscious sordidness by the hordes of cringing robbers who
clutter his steps from dawn till dark, and deplete his pocket-book in a
way that puts compound interest to the blush.
In my rags and tatters I escaped the pestilence of tipping, and
encountered men on a basis of equality. Nay, before the day was out I
turned the tables, and said, most gratefully, "Thank you, sir," to a
gentleman whose horse I held, and who dropped a penny into my eager palm.
Other changes I discovered were wrought in my condition by my new garb.
In crossing crowded thoroughfares I found I had to be, if anything, more
lively in avoiding vehicles, and it was strikingly impressed upon me that
my life had cheapened in direct ratio with my clothes.
When before I
inquired the way of a policeman, I was usually asked,
"Bus or 'ansom,
sir?" But now the query became, "Walk or ride?" Also, at the railway
stations, a third-class ticket was now shoved out to me as a matter of
course.
But there was compensation for it all. For the first time I met the
English lower classes face to face, and knew them for what they were.
When loungers and workmen, at street corners and in public-houses, talked
with me, they talked as one man to another, and they talked as natural
men should talk, without the least idea of getting anything out of me for
what they talked or the way they talked.
And when at last I made into the East End, I was gratified to find that
the fear of the crowd no longer haunted me. I had become a part of it.
The vast and malodorous sea had welled up and over me, or I had slipped
gently into it, and there was nothing fearsome about it-
-with the one
exception of the stoker's singlet.