THE GREAT HOMELESS.

New Zealand Herald, Volume XXIV, Issue 8928, 17 December 1887, Page 1 (Supplement)

THE GREAT HOMELESS.

LONDON CITY'S SUFFERING MILLION.

SLEEPING IN THE OPEN AIR.

THIRTEEN PER CENT. OF THE POPULATION CLASSED AS "PRACTICALLY SAVAGE." Trafalgar Square is one of the great eontradictions of London. It is the centre of everything that is rioh, powerful, and aristocratic, yet it is surrounded by everything that is vile, abject, and wretched. Trafalgar Square has lately been the rendezvous of the unemployed, the initial point of their demonstrations, and their home. It was said then that the unemployed who had been acoustomed to " frequent" Trafalgar Square had begun to bestir themselves, and bad gone inarching down the Strand to the Mansion House to the number of some 5000 or 6000. Nothing much was thought of the parade, the presenoe of masses of the unemployed being such a common'thing in London, and certainly the Lord Mayor did not seem to pay much attention to the orowd, as he refused to grant the leaders an interview, and curtly told them to drown themselves in the river.

Then there was another parade down the Strand, bat it was stopped short at Charing Cross Station by the police, w&o treated the parade to a meal of cold club. After receiving this effective reply to the cry of ".Bread or Work," the processionists gathered around Trafalgar Square again, but, when they attempted to enter the enclosure, they were met at all points by a cordon of police. The result was not only that they were shut off from their place of meeting, but were also bereft of their night'* lodging house. The despatch says :— "To night Trafalgar Square is surrounded

1 neighbours across the channel and establish in some of oar open spaces largfe sheds where 1 our homeless poor could obtain a shelter anc in winter a warmth by a large fire nndei r proper regulations and supervision ? It ii > true that a large proportion of the trampi in question are able-bodied men, to whosi ■ mind the idea of work would be the ver} i last to occur, but a considerable number stil belong to a class to whom poverty has .come through misfortune rather than through laziness And crime. In any case such a plan, which would bring but trifling expense upon I ratepayers, would go far to prevent the re-

by a cordon of police, who forced the usual I night-dwellers in its depths from making | their beds therein oat oa to the cold stone sidewalks. The number of those so dispossessed is set down at 5000. To-night those pjeoted from the square are sleeping in the arcades of Her Majesty's Tneatre and the vestibules of the houses in the Haymarket, Regent, Charles, and Jcrmyn Streets. The sight of so many huddled masses of human beings is simply horrible.' The next day these thousands of the homeless and unemployed rallied in Adelaide, King William, and othsr streets about the square, and marched off to Hyde Park, where another difficulty occurred with the police. Again they were barred out from the square at night, and again they roosted in the areas and steps of the houses in the neighbourhood, the householders complaining to the palice that when they came out in the morning they found the fronts of their houses converted into pig-pens. Every year the London homeless poor form the subject of comment and anxiety, but this year the great social problem seams more difficult to solve than ever. The poor they have always with them, bnt this year there seems to be a greater influx than ever. The word influx is used because these thou* I sands of creatures, "without visible means of support," are most of them outsiders, and are nearly all birds of passage. They begin trooping Into London about the latter end of October or the first part of November, and then those that have survived the winter go trooping out la April or the beginning of May. During the winter they beg, steal, starve, and die, and during the summer they

their quarters by night in Trafalgar Square, where they sleep on newspapers, and by day in St. James' Park, where they sun themselves in an enclosure known as the 'Ballring.' There they remain the whole of the day, feeding on Scraps which are brought them by the sackful by more fortunate or more energetic companions, and amusing themselves by numerous al fresco games and entertainments. Numerous complaints hare been made both in Parliament and in the newspapers, one gentleman describing the scene as such as 4 could * only have been equalled in Sodom and Gomorrah the night prior to their destruction.' In the House, also, Mr. Kimber denounced fthe conduct of the vagrants as ' accompanied by language of the grossest description, to the great scandal of the genera) public and the de» pravement and detriment of the many children of the cleanly and industrious poor seeking health and exercise, and who could not even play on the grass without contamination by vermin.' Mr. Plunket, in reply, could give no promise of interference with the right of every man to lie on the grass in the parks, and while the police have certainly the power to put a atop to any misoonduct, they certainly have no authority to tarn a man out of the park because he has a ragged garment and an unwashed face. The evil thus appears to be one in a measure common to all great cities, and for which no remedy exists as far as the daytime is concerned. as regards the night, would it not be possible to follow the example of our

tarn Into tramps or hop-pickers, or harvesters or masons, go back to their trades or return to tbeir vagabondage. Winter is a very trying time in England, the air being full of a chilly dampness that goes through one. The country poorhouses, or workhouses, as they are called, soon fill up, and thosti who are outside have got to shiver and bear it or else start off for " Lunnon town." It is partly gregariousness that leads them to congregate in the great metropolis, partly the truth that misery loves company, and partly the knowledge that London, with its tens of thousands of houses and its millions of people, is a good place to steal in and make a dishonest penny.

currence of scenes whioh are now of nightly occurrence in the finest of our London squares," One of the greatest sources of grief in this writer's mind is seen to lie in the fact that one of London's fiuest squares should be thus polluted—thus turned into a great and ill-smelling dormitory, "rafalgar Square is certainly one of the finest open places in London, and a great centre both of attraction and travel. It is dedicated to Nelson, to whose memory rises a massive granite column 145 feet high, a copy of one of the Corinthian columns of tho Temple of Mars at Rome, surmounted by a bronze statue of the Admiral seventeen feet in height. The pedestal is adorned 'With bronze reliefs, and four colossal lions, modelled by Sir Edward Landseer, couoh upon pedestals running out from the column in the form of a cross. Toward the north side of the square are two fountains, A statne of Sir Henry Havelock, the deliverer of Luoknow, stands on the Strand or east side of the Nelson column, and a statue of Sir Charles Napier, the conqueror of Soiade, on the other. The north-east corner of the Bquare is occupied by a bronze equestrian statue of George IV. On the terrace on the north side of the square rises the National Gallery, and near it on the east is the Church of St. Martin, where Nell Gwynue was buried. On the ease side are Motley's Hotel and the building of the Royal Humane Society, and opposite these, on the west side, are the Union Club building and tho Royal College of Physicians.

Down to 1874 Northumberland House rose on the south-east corner of the square, but this was then removed to make way for Northumberland Avenue and the Grand Hotel.

Un the south side of the square stands Charing Cross, marked by an equestrian statue of Charles 1.

The square in size is 450 by 300 feet, or about the same size as Union Square in this city, measuring from house to house. It is excavated toward the north, the streets on either side rising by gentle ascents, and the level of the square being about twelve feet below that of the National Gallery, It is paved with asphalt, and there are a few stone benches scattered about. Standing at Charing Cross, and looking down south, there is » vista of Whitehall, bordered by the Horse Guards, Government offices, Foreign Office, and Downing-street on one side, and the great Scotland Yard, the United Service Institute, and Montague House on the other, with the towers of Westminster Abbey and the Houses ot Parliament showing over the housetops. To the east is the roaring Strand, to the west Pall Mall, the Carleton Club, St. James' Park, Buckingham Palace, the War Office, Marlborough House. Running northwesterly lies the Haymarket, with Her Majesty's Theatre on the corner of the Mall, and leading into Regent-street and Piccadilly. So much for the aristocratic surroundings of the square, but it has also those of the most plebeian character. Back of the National Gallery and St. Martin's Church is a great nest of slums, where the dark side of human nature may be studied. New streets have been cut through this part from St. Martin's .to Soho and from Piccadilly Circus to St. Martin's Place, but these have not cleaned out the rookeries. Leicester Square, Castle-street, Orange-street, and Whitcomb street are there still, and from and betwaen these runs a network of alleys and, courts which cannot be shown in the accompanying sketch map, and whioh actually teem with everything that is wretched and wicked. It is a good recruiting ground for the "great homeless," and that is one reason why Trafalgar Square has been selected for a camping-place. Another is because it is sheltered on the north and east by the walls of the exoavation, and because it contains fountains wherein the masses not only drink, but wash themselves. It was stated in the Chronicle despatches that the poorhouse returns showed 91,000 paupers in actual want, as against 76,000 at this time last year, but the secretary of the United Charity Society went along way. farther than this, And said that London today contained 1,000,000 people whose con* dition is one of suffering and distress. In faot, the more one looks into the matter the worse it seems to be. A recent number of the London Tunes and Echo contained an article on East London poverty, whioh had in it some terrible figures. They have been collated by Charles Booth, au officer of the organisation just mentioned, and some of them are worth quoting. The particular locality whioh Mr. Bjoth had been examining was that known as the Tower Hamlets, whose population he divides broadly into eight classes. The lowest of all—including 6882 persons, or 1£ percent, of the population of the distriotconsists of a few occasional labourers, loafers, semi* criminals, street hawkers, and street performed. The next above this number, 51,860, or over 11 per cent, of the population, are casual earners, as a rule, shiftless, hand-to-mouth, pleasure-loving, and always poor. The third includes intermittent earners, numbering 33,936, or 7£ per cent, of the whole, aud is made up of a miserable class, mostly struggling, helpless people, victims of competition in its worst torms, and feeling with especial severity the weight of recurrent trade depressions. In class 4 Mr. Booth groups the regular wage* earners—67.22o, or about 15 per cent,, poverty-stricken for the most part. In the four remaining groups are successively to be found the regular standard wage-earners. In other districts, Mr. Booth comes to the conclusion that of the population of Whitechapel, St. George's-in-the-Eaat, Mile End, Stepney, and Poplar, 6.5 per oent, only are above the line of poverty, 22 per cent, are on the line, and 13 per oent. below it. No wonder the paper asserts mournfully that this is undoubtedly a very serious state of things, When we come to examine the

It would be ultra humanitarianism to say that one of these homeless wretchos is deserving of commiseration and charity," the fact being that many of them are agitators, mischief-makers, scamps, and ugly rascals. The American tramp i» bad enough, and the scalawags of this country are capable of harm enough, but they are princes compared to many of units of that hideous whole—a London mob. Nothing is too wicked for such a gathering, and while this simple wickedneos might be forgiven, there is nothing to be said in extenuation of its meanness, cunning, and cowardice. It will be well to look at the composition of the homeless poor, and, even when looked at through the eyes of such a benevolent authority as that of May hew, it is seen to be bad enough. The more important class, important because of its increasing numbers, is that of the regular young vagabond. He is either a runaway apprentice or he has been driven from home by the cruelty of his parents, or allowed to go wild; in some cases he is an orphan, and has lost his father and mother in early life. The youths of this class are principally of from 15 to 25 years of age. They generally travel in parties of two or three, with young women as abandoned as themselves in their company. Approaohing these in charaoter are the young countrymen who have absconded, aud to whom the facility of leading an idle, vagabond life has proved too great a temptation. The next class of vagrants is the sturdy English mendicant. He, though not a constant occupant of the tramp ward in the workhouse, frequently makes his appearance there to partake of its shelter when he has spent his last shilling in dissipation. Besides these, there arp a few calling themselves agricultural labourers, who are really such, and who are to be readily distinguished. There are also a few mechanics —chiefly tailors, shoemakers, and masons who are occasionally destitute. About one-fifth of these homeless are females, and nearly the whole of them are prostitutes. Of their nationality nearly three-quarters of themthat is, of all the tramps—are Irish. This is very plain and, it might seem to some, very harsh language, yet it was written by one who spent the best years of his life in gathering reliable information concerning the poor of London, and presenting it in suoh a way as to do the subjects good. As has been said, the subject ot these homeless masses has forced itself upon the publio more this year than for a long time before. In the London Graphic lately there appeared I & full-page engraving of one of the enclosures of ' Hyde Park, with, the grass dotted all over with human beings stretched out in .variety of attitude. Accompanying the sketoh was the following letterpress :— " During the last month a large army of ' poverty-stricken wretches have taken u»

lowermost 13 per cent, we are indeed brought face to face with a class that may well excite the sincereat commiseration and awaken a very decided apprehension. They are, Mr. Booth says, practically savages, and their existence is a aeries of extreme hardship and occasional excess. Their food is of the coarsest description, and their only luxury is drink. These are the battered figures who slouch through the streets and play the bully or the beggar, and help to foul the record of the unemployed. And this is London, the richest city in the world. —San Francisco Chronicle.