THE UNPITIED DREGS

Manawatu Times, Volume XLIX, Issue 3345, 13 May 1926, Page 4

THE UNPITIED DREGS

'IN LONDON'S SHADOWS’ VAGABONDS WHO WEAR FOUR WAISTCOATS. Since the day nearly fifty years ago when James Greenwood wrote his famous article. ‘The Amateur Casual, there has been no description of the down-and-out of London so vivid as the experience of the Rev. Frank L. Jennings, B.Litt., who pigged it for six weeks in the underworld of London, and describes his experiences in a book called ‘ln London's Shadows,* which has just been published (says the ‘Sunday Chronicle’). The first thing ho did was to get together a suitable wardrobe, every article of which .like the picture of the man with lumbago, told a story. “The trousers were bespattered with paint, and showed their patriotic allegiance to the land of the Emerald Isle by turning green at the bottom. The coat and waistcoat cried hard for decent burial, for they were old, frayed, and crumpled up. The khaki shirt had seen its first blood in the battle of Loos of March, 1915, and had sniffed poison gas in the second battle of Ypres a few months later. “The cap —don’t mention it; it was quite an apology for something worn on the head, that speedily convoyed the knowledge that the wearer looked sweetly rakish. Pulled low down over the forehead with a Beatty slant. It served to remind onlookers of Harry Tate at his bast—-or -worst.” The First Night. Thus arrayed, cne autumn morning he sot ouit from Wandsworth to the nether world. The experiences of the first night, which he spent in a room 90ft by 12ft where nineteen men slept, was enough to frighten off most people from any such adventure, although he was not cross-examined, for “every man in that strange community understands and respects your domain ol! privacy.’* “He was tremendously struck by the enormous amount of clothes which had to be unrobed, for tnc dossers carry their whole worldly belongings with them. Thus, to wear two shirts two pair of trousers, and three or four waistcoats is nothing out of tho ordinary.” Among the impedimenta you will invariably find an enamel mug, fl-bil!y-can, an old knife and fork, bits of string, the more the merrier (for it does everything from keeping up trousers to being used as fag ends), small parcels of food ,a dirty old newspaper, sundry bits of cheap jewellery, comb, studs, bags of lavender (the’ latter forming part of the trading stock), a pack of playing cards, and several mysterious bundles Embankment Sleepers. Most of the sleepers stripped stark in this place of Dreadful Night, where the odors as the hours wore on became incredible, and almost unmentionable. Yet tills shelter was run by a nearby mission. Some of the down-and-outs are far too poor or too hopeless to get into a shelter, and take to the Embankment which is still full of would-be sleepers, though this is frequently denied. It was there that he met a curious old Scotsman called Hugh M'Chree, who had been yours at it, but for whom the horror became so much that two months after the parson met him his body was found lloaimg near one of the wharves oil! Upper Thames street, with a dirty note m his pocket; “Don’t blame me I 1 shan’t be missed; 1 couldn’t .stand n any longer.” The shrill blast of a police whistle meant that some, poor devil nad jumped from Blnckf rial's Bridge. When the policeman roused the sleepers, they slunk off in the rain, some of I hem taking shelter in the crypt of St. Paul's, where they were not allowed to take off their booh, and which they bad to leave at o, •light of (lie Street Singer. those six weeks the parson put

his hand to all sorts of jobs. Tlio hardest of all was that of street singing, at which he never made so much as would buy a shirt, although he had known men on the strecits who have earned as much as 10s or 12s a day by it. One of the most trying features of the street singer is the opposition no meets with from milkmen, coalmen, dustmen, and all sorts of trying enthusiasts. Thus ft was irresistibly comic to bo singing, say, the lirst verse of ‘Because,’ when a man wheeling a hand-barrow would come alongside, shouting for all he was worth ‘‘Old iron,” or again, when one started ‘hove Sends a Little Gift of Roses,’ and came to the lines, "Take thou my gift, my offering of to hear a raueous voice of a pedlar swamping the word "roses” with “Carbolic, any carbolic?” “Bullet Stiffy.” Among the street pedlars there was no one so remarkable as the veteran known as “Bullet Stiffy,” a curious mixture of seasoned wisdom and degeneracy. ■Tie read some really good books and had Byron, Georgo Eliot, and Dickens in his looker. He could argue like a first-class debater, yet he could sloop to do things that would shame the biggest rogue. Ho could have prayed as reverently as a saint, yet he would have biased like a tar barrel if you had put a match to his breath. In quiet moments he could become as tender as a woman. In his mad ones ho could roar like a tornado. Ho believed in the literal command of tho song, ‘Bring To Mo Only With Thine Eyes’—he loved wine and women. Ho could drink like an elephant. One day he would be ‘blind,’ and a small boy would lead him janothcr day ho would produce a club foot, and beg; and now and again he took to a crutch and posed as a war casualty.” The parson tried his hand at peddling, but found it a poor task, although the newsvendor makes quite a good thing of it. Indeed, he says that if ever tho resigns from the ministry he will consider the claims of newspaper selling as an alternative.