London's Underworld.

Evening Post, Volume LXXVII, Issue 13, 16 January 1909, Page 10

London's Underworld.

To call this book a passionate appeal for the very poor would be to convey a subtle misstatement of the author's entire purpose. And yet in such or similar phraseology the average reader would clothe his impression of Mr. Holmes' 6 "Known to the Police." The truth is that of appeals there are enough and to spare. Mr. Holmes, has a less worn theme. For he has emerged from twentyj one years' work as a police court missionary, with a mind above appeals ! "Known to the Police" is an eloquent, overwhelming panegyric of the bottom dog, with an emphatic openness of speech regarding the wastrel, the criminal, and the demented whose doings too often pass Tor a. comprehensive picture of London's underworld. "If I want to find some one who satisfies my ideal of what a hero should be, down into the Inferno of the slums I go to seek him," says Mr. Holmes. But he is not without a sense of humour. His heroes are not all of the conventional heroic type. For instance, there is the Hero with the Lavender Suit: — "One rough , fellow of my acquaintance has saved six would-be suicides from the basin of one I canal, and on each occasion he has api peared to give evidence in a police court. t Five times he had given his evidence and quietly and quickly disappeared, but on the sixth occasion he waited about the court foi an opportunity of speaking to tho magistrate. This was at length [ given him, when he stated that he thought it about time some one paid I him for the loss he sustained m saving ; these people from the canal. This was the sixth time he had attended a police court to give evidence, and each time he had lost a day's pay. He did not mind that so very much, as it was but | the loss of four shillings at intervals ; but this time h6 had ou a new suit, which cost him thirty shillings. Even tht magistrate had to smile, but lie ordered the brave fellow to receive five Shillings for e.fpenses' and loss of day's »york, and ten shillings compensation for damage to his clothing. He looked ruefully at. his ruined clothes and at the fifteen shillings m his hand, and went out of the court. I went to speak to him. ' Look here, Mr Holmes,' he said, ' fifteen shillings won't buy me a new lavender suit. The next blooming woman that jumps in the canal '11 have to stop there; I've had enough of tli/s.' " Let us look at another of Mr. Holmes's heroes. There are really two of them. Perhaps rightly they should not be thrown into juxtaposition with heroes at all, but Mr. Holmes will not object to the classification. It's all about a pennyworth of coal. So are great things and small shaken together: — "Fourteen pounds of coal, please, Mrs. Jenkins !" John came wearily downstairs to weigh the coal. He returned with twopencehalfpenny, which he handed to his wife, and said : " A farthing change." Mrs. Jenkins searched her small pile of coppers, but failed to and a farthing. "Is it Mrs. Brown " she asked her hus- j band. " Yes," was the reply. " Oh, then, givo her the halfpenny back, and ] tell her to owe me the iarthing." John went into -the shop, taking the halfpenny with him, and I heard a discussion going on, after which John returned with the coin, and said : " She won't take it." But Mis. Brown followed him into the room with her fourteen pounds of coal in a small basket. " No, Mrs. Jenkins, I can't take it ; I owe you two farthings noAv If you keep the ha'penny I shall only owe you one, and I'll try and pay that off next lime." " Never mind wnat you owe me, Mrs. Brown ; you lake the j ha'penny. You have little children, and have no husband to work, for you like I have," was Mrs. Jenkins's reply. But Mrs. Brown was not to be put d^wn, so after a protracted discussion the halfpenny remained in the possession of Mrs. Jenkins 1 sat wondering at it all, quite lost in thought. Presently Mrs. Jenkins said: "I wish Mrs. Brown had taken that ha'penny." " I wish I could have all that is owing to me," said Mrs. Jenkina. " Show me some of your debts." We went into the coal depot. "I' have had to stop that woman," she said, pointing to a name and a lot of figures chalked up on a board. "She owes me one and elevenpence farthing." I reckoned up the account. " Quite correct," I said. " She had sixteen lots of coal for one and elevenpence farthing ; she c.in't pay me at nil now , the is so far behind. I ought to ha\e stopped her before, but I did j iu;t Hkw I" be haul m'h n r."'- -Hcvi-ral : oihpA "chalked uj)" accounts confronted

me — one for sixpence, another for ninepence — but that one and elevenpence farthing \yat> tha heaviest account. It was too pitiful ; I could enquire no further. It might be mentioned that Mrs. Jenkins's coal, had it been retailed in bulk, would have cost the purchaser nearly thirty-two shillings, a ton — and Mrs. Jpnkins, that wicked old extortioner, made less than twopence a hundredweight on the sales ! Those of Mr. Holmes' s friends who cannot afford luxuries, content themselves with halfpennyworths of cinders. All the characters in the piece are not so pleasant. There is a picturo, 'for instance, ghastly in its wealth of detail, of a renegade parson in the chapter which deals with "People who have 'Come Down.' " Mr. Holmes first; made his 'acquaintance early - one af t?rnoon. This "come-down" gentleman was lying on a miserable bed, unwashed, wearing a cassock. Penny packets of cigarettes were ' in great profusion, but an inverted packing-case stood in lieu ot chairs. His family comprised a de mented wife, a big-headed daughter ot seventeen, with a varant face and thick slobbering lips, nursing and laughing over a little doll, and a cunning-looking boy— afterwards "knowD to the police' — of fourteen. "Nothing I have met in lite, says Mr. Holmes, "is quite so disgusting and pppalling as the demoralised educated man living in Inferno. Such Eellows descend to depths of wickedness and uncleanliness that the gross and ignorant poor cannot emulate." But' it- is refreshing to turn to a thumbnail sketch of a magisterial episode — an incident in the life of a magistrate who still presides over one of the metropolitan police courts. 1 One morning he was in a very unpleasant frame of ° mmd — but lei Mr Holmes tell the story : "Everything went wrong with him, and, as a consequence, with every one who had to deal with him. He was cross, peevish, and rude. _ The police knew it, for he was not civil to them ; witnesses knew it, for he was rough with them. On one" occasion when he had been at his worst he caught my eye. After the court was over he said to me : "You thought me very ill-tempered this morning ?'" "Indeed I did, your Worship, for you were rough to every one." "Ah !" he said, "i have neuralgia frightfully; I have had no sleep all night." I said : "I am very sorry, your \Vorship ; but I notie'ed another thing." "What was that*" "Why, you let all the prisoners down lightly." "Oh," he said, "you noticed it, did you? I had to let myself go sometimes, for I could hardly bear "it, so I let go when it did _ not matter very much ; but I kspt a tight hand over myself when it came to sentences. I was determined that the prisoners should not suffer for my neuralgia." Indeed, one may enlarge considerably one's acquaintanceship by a perusal of .this book. And it should be invigorating — not to prats of illumination or the widening of sympathies — to come into close contact with people so utterly and unspeakably removed from "one's own set." The book necessarily has a definite bearing upon the absorbing social problems of the day, and as such forms a valuable contribution to literature upon the subject. For it is "written by a man who has been in lifelong contact with the grim diseases which give the eriminologist his theories and the sociologist his data, and, above all, it is written by a man who combines with warm human sympathies a clear and a penetrating vision. ' There is much interesting comparison of present-day police court methods with those which prevailed a generation sinetogether with a criticaf survey of seyerat measures aiming at the prevention of crime and the reform of the criminal, but the book is most precious for its clearly written human documents. And the chapter which deals with Jonathan Pinchbeck, the slum Autol\cus, is irresistible. — St. James's Budget. The Whistler. 1151 He sat in a great luxurious chamber beside an immense writing -table ; the . windows before him opened on Pic- ! cadilly, but at that height, though one I could see the eddying traffic plainly, and j hear the deep roar that ebbed and flowed ceaselessly from morn till night through that tideway of lite, it seemed yet remote from all the noise and rattle. The air was softened and stilled, calmed into quiet by his influence ; the thick carpet j was like green moss under the feet, the ■ polished walls reflected the intermittent i tireiight in gleams of red and pearl and green, the heavy chairs, the gigantic | writing-table, the glistening threads of gold in the brocade curtains, all spoko of wealth — as well they might, for thero in that chamber sat one ot the kings of finance, who was at that very moment, [ by his own reckoning, the richest man in all the world. With an impatient gesture he pushed away the papers he had been poring over, and sat hack iii his chaii, gazing out of the window before him — a tall man, with line features and pitiless ejes, and thm lips that might have been carven in stone for all th^e humanity their lines betrayed ; a man who never smiled, people said, and who had forgotten how to laugh. " It might have been more," he said, with a touch of acid disdain, '"hut the fool bungled it in my absence." Then he fell to thinking of how many years it was since he had begun to lead gently, quietly, up to this moment, this suprema moment which gave his enemies into his hands, and bestowed upon him incalculable wealth and pi*wer. Heretofore he had been masked in this or that kingly personality ; ho had been a hidden power behind, always behind, the throne. Now, at last, he would be what he had always thirsted for — the real and unmistakable force, that must be reckoned with. Now that enemy oi his was disposed oi he would piay his part, right royally. STcs, as things were, happily, nowadays, there was no power like wealth, and with brains to it, bodily strength and vigour. It had been a long time, but worth working for. He took up a paper fron. the rest, read it over carefully, drew his bruws together, and laid it down on the top of the pile before him " Yes," lie commented, softly, "it has Deen a long fight, and at last it is over. I am the richest man in all the world." "In all the world !'' he mused over the echo of his own words, and frowned that he should have been betrayed into speaking his thoughts aloud. " 1 must never do that again," lie- (old himself scornfully ; " a sign of mental weakness." And the very next instant he was repeating to him s elf that it had been a very long time — and fell back in his memory to the privations and sufferings he had endured in attaining his end ; of the difficulties overcome, the obstacles subdued and passed over, the thirst and hunger, the weary days, the long, dreary, lonely nights. At an end now ! He had reached the summit of his ambitions ; thero were only thrones and principalities to be bought now, only Governments and Peoples to ba set in the way he would. He gathered the loose paper* in his lonp;, beautiful hand, and sat clasping them while he pondered over pome knotty question they eet forth. . Yet on the whole he was salisHod, though the coup had been bungled, because ho was not there when it na.< made. • The twilight. ■ fall.- nnd the leaping flames filled' all the brightly-coloured

room. Thero was an east wind blowing outside ; ho heard it in the chimney ; and the outside air was full of yellowish vapour. Through it the roar of traffic came dimly up to his unhearing ears, till at last something reached him that | stirred strange terrors in his soul. He curved a hand over his ear, and, bending forward, listened intently— his breath coming in little fluttering sighs as if he were running hard. A fine, thin thread of music pierced I the icy air, ascending to where he. was and hanging ever the dull booming of the traffic like o star above a /whirlpool. Only some one whistling on old Irish dance. The sweet, shrill notes went lilting gaily on till right in (he middle of the second phrase they stopped, suddenly and abruptly, as if the whistle had been struck away from the player's lips. The Richest Man in All the World rose unsteadily and tottered across the room to the window, and clutching the thick curtain looked down on the hastening crowd. On the pavement edge stood a lean, boyish figure, with flaxen head thrown lightly back and gazing straight at him. 1 The Richest Man in All the World groaned aloud, and went unsteadily back to his chair, where he collapsed, and groaned again. There was no terror in his face now, only despair; he had looked so many times his life for the one who had made that music. Always at such times as he had made a stride upwards to where he was now, at last safely established. Always he- had looked, but never before had he seen the Whistler, though he always knew him. " James," he whispered to himself. "James — after all these years." " Seven-and-twenty years, Richard," said a voice beside him, and he lifted his eyes to meet those of the V 7 histler, standing in. the firelight, with ib. whistle laid against his cheek, :md his long thin fingers uuttering above the holes. A country boy's whistle it was, cut out of a grey reed, clumsy, but singularly sweet and clear, like the cry ot the wandering wind across the mountain top. "' Seven-and-twenty years, James, echoed the Richest Man in All the World. " "Tis n long time !" "'Tis half a lifetime," said the Whistler, looking full at the other, and the Richest Man in All the World saw again that strange mystic blue of them, pupil and iris alike, clear as the eyebnght, and shining like stars; eyes that were beautiful, gentle, sweet, and Rooked as if the soul behind them were* somehow lacking ; and yet the Richest Man in All the World undei stood that no knowledge was hidden from that soul — either of this world or that on whose boundaries we ever unwittingly tread. "I have cotfie for you, Richard," said the boy, blowing a few faint, sweet notes on the whistle, and laughing lightly ; tho laugh was like the wind, and the whistle was like the laugh, and both sounded from very far oh on a great height. Ihe Richest Man in All the World instinctively clasped his papers tightly and tried to speak, but his speech was frozen in him ; the boy played from the beginning of the little old dance- till that same middle portion, and once more paused with that same strange, muffled, gasping sound — the pipe still at his smiling lips. "For God's sake," burst out the Richest Man in All the World, the tune, James." "I will finish it, Richard, if you will draw out, in God's name, the kniie you struck to my heart just there — draw it out, in God's name." He drew, bacic his tattered coat and showed th% Rich Man something under ' his garnionK The Rich Man. cried out bitterly-'. .-"l'' did not want to .-do it," he wailed-, "The-' money was mine by rights I He had no right to give you the fifty pounds,^ you, the Omadaun — the fool." •"I was' tli*3 eldest-born, Richard/," whispered the Whistler, softly. "\ou were a fool," protested the Rich Man. "Wha,t would you have don,c with fifty pounds? .You -were hurrying to give half of it to old Mary Scanlan when 1 met you. Look what i have made of it? I—lI — I am the richest man in all the world." He flung the papers at the Whistler's feet, and they scattered on the mossy carpet. The Whistler drew away from them, til) nothing showed out of the gloom save his white face and starry ' eyes, and the long fluttering fingers on the little pipe. "1 see tears," he whispered j "tears and blood, and fire and flame. I hear j little children crying in the dark, moth- | ers weeping for theiv children, fathers crying for their sons,/ their daughters. I see ruin, destruction. "Is this what you have made with my fifty pounds, Richard?" I The lad's flaxen hair lifted off his I forehead as he stood, half in dark and half in gloom, and the Rich Alan's soul died within him, for there was no wind in that great room, over Piccadilly, nor was there the breath of wild mountain heather in the yellow air, or the eouud of leaping water. "What would you have clone with it, Fool?" he asked harshly, to disguise Im fear. The Whistler played a, bar or two,' and the Rich Man stared at his bare I feet on the green carpet. "I would have paid Mary bcanlan's rent," he said. The Rich Man's mirth was horrible. "How like a fool I" he said. "Why, ■ I have made your fifty pounds into millions." "Your sorrow !" said the Fool ;, " 'twill avail nothing where you are going, Richaa'd." The Rich Man caught himself tightly in his chair. "I am not going anywhere out ol this room," he gasped determinedly. "You are imagination. Go away!" "I am your brother, the Fool," said the Whistler, and he softly played ovei the little merry danee — breaking off abruptly in the middle. The Richest Man in All the World groaned in bitterness of soul. In futile agony of spirit. ''Come!" urged the Whistler, "the way is long." He touched the Rich Man on the shoulder. "Can you think oi e'er a one you have j fed, oi comforted, or made happy in. all these seven-and-twenty years?" he asked softly. "If you can, Richard, call it to you now." Something in the Rich Man's brain went backward through the years, and sought vainly, while the Whistjer waited in the firelit room. He knew now what had happened, and that all his millions would not help him. I'rom the vain quest a little limping shadow followed him, and stood looking up tit him with hunted eyes. "'Tis the cat /ou ted the uignt. you came first to London," faid the Whistle^. "Take it up, for 'tis all there is to speak for you, Richard, and come with me " The Richest Man in All tho World rose obediently. lifted the little shadow in his shadowy aims, and looked back on himself, sitting with down-bent head and loo=e, drooping, hands in the grout chuir where he had made plans for Kings and Emperors. Outside the yellow mist on the drifting, icy wind, and the night fell silently ; while before him Founded the echo of the whistle acioss the border of infinite silencs. — France* Campbell, ia tha Westminster Gazette. Steam has not yet abolished sailing vessels, the total number of the latter craft in the world beinsr nearly double that of sleamei-B. A woman of Woolloomooloo Asserted with emphasis, "Pooh," "I never get ill, Lax*Ton:cV my pill — Kcoii 'em handy — Uic fame as I do " L&xo-Touio PilU, l^d and Is W.~ Advt.