THE MARCH OF THE DEADBEAT

Otago Witness, Issue 3002, 27 September 1911, Page 88

THE MARCH OF THE DEADBEAT

SCENES IN LONDON STREETS. By Arthttk J. Hhghway. The dead-beat! He is in London in his thousands. Ho has tramped the world and returned there. Should he tramp it again, that great city will call, him banc once more. By day and by night you may seo him, if you look in the right quarter. In Spitalfields—the most densely populated area of the British Isles—with its 316 people to every acre, and Whiteehapel with its 157 to the acre, you may find him by day in his scores. By night, the embankment claims its hundreds and every secluded a.l!evway its units. The innocent prying stranger who penetrates alone to the alleyways of Spitalfields, Whiteehapel (the Thieves' Quarter). Stepney and districts thereabouts, is not overwise. Even in the daytime men are still robbed there, criminals and booty disappearing hopelessly and finally on the slightest alarm into the warrens on every side. But, besides the policeman, there is one man who may enter here with impunity, lhat man is the city missionary. It is to the guidance of ono of this band of workers that I am indebted far the sights I saw concerning the march of the dead-beat. CASUALS, CRIMINALS, AND CADGERS. That alliterative headline is a complete division of the typo as we saw him during the weary six hours of night and day that we spent in tramping through his haunts. There was the man who was not yet permanentl/ on the streets. He would take a job for a time—when he could get it—and retain it till discharged for incapacity or laziness. There was the criminal living by his ravages on society. There was the cadger, the professional of the streets, past master in every wile that would bring him a living -without the necessity of doing a hand's turn for it. He represents some types of the " British workman" who has been outjthrust by the <: sober foreigner." He is the son of laziness and outdoes his father. Ho can live in degradation on apparently nothing, knowin,o: as ho does how to work the round of the free meals and the free beds. Behind a timber yard next to the docks in Stepney wo found nearly 100 men sitting about on the footpath, waiting for the distribution of free bed' tickets in Medland Hall. This was at 3 o'clock on a sunny May afternoon, and the tickets would not be distributed till 6 p.m. Summer and winter alike that hall is filled by over 340 homeless failures —men who cannot afford to pay even the fourpenco required by a lodginghouse keeper or the twopence asked by the Salvation Army Homes—men who are absolutely down, down with no prospect in life, no ambition, no desire save the mere animal instincts maintained by tne existence of lifo within them. Wo walked down that scattered lino of misery. Rags, dirt, and expectorated filth! The May sun shone on the men and warmed them and revealed glaringly and faithfully it heir filthy meanness of attire and grimy dirtiness of skin. From a quarter to a half of those gathered were smoking—as the footpath around would have evidenced even had the pipes vanished. In huddled bundles! thev sat or lounged about, exhibits of all that men should not be. THE LURE OF THE STREET But that was their life—waiting. They were always waiting for something to turn up—waiting for something to be done for them or given them. Through the day they were always waiting for the night; at night, enduring till dav came. This represented the last stage of the deadbeat —waiting, waiting for the end ! Their lives lie all behind them. See their weary, dull faces—faces aged by waiting. No young faces among them. The face of what might be a young man is old'. And their lives? From 100 of these men you could obtain glimpses of unimagined corners of the world. They have tramped it over and over. But wherever they go the lure of the street claims them again. This insistent call of the street is in their blood. Place such a man in a quiet rural sceno with comfortable surroundings, would he remain ? . No. He must be with his fellows foraging in the streets of London; with his fellows starving in the streets of London; with his fellows watching the rush of the streets of London; with his fellows feeling the pulso of the full noontide stir and by night the solitary mystic quiot—of what ? still the streets of London. Those pavements are familiar to his feet; those street smells welcome in his nostrils; and the whole atmosphere that to which he has been used. To London the world-wide wanderer turns; and in London there go on for ever and ever the wearied iteration and muffled shuffle of the march of the deadbeat. A NIGHT'S SLEEP. The afternoon wore on, and up from the docks and down from the slums, in ones and twos and thees, with shuffling, sliding feet, sunken eyes, and raggxjd, rounded shoulders, that brigade of misery gathered. A man in bluo at the top of the street watched their numbers swell To him it was a matter of routine. At a little before 6 thero were some 400 men gathered there, and the tickets for free beds that would bo distributed numbered only 300 odd. Some 50 men would have to find beds elsewhere. - Presently the mission worker appeared. How those men eyed his approach ! How those who had been there too often feared .his glance, for with such a crowd as this the "chronics," whom bo knew too well.

would have to wait till all the now ones had been supplied. The work of distribution proceeds apace. Each man as he receives his bit of cardboard shuffles down to the hall as happy as his limited capacity for enjoyment will allow him to bo now tlia,t he is safe for the night, All the tickets are now gone, and still 70 men appear appealingly before the mission worker. To bestow a bed he is powerless. But food he can give, and, as the night is fine, sleeping out, provided the police can be evaded, will not be too great a hardship. So down to Medland Hall those men are taken, and each given a pint of hot coffee and a thick sandwich. Wo stood and watched those men eat—feed is the proper word. The great thick sandwich disappeared in an incredibly short space of time, assisted as it was by great gulps of hot liquid. One old man with bowed head and grey beard leaned against the wall near us. His cheeks were terribly sunken and his frame shaky But a little while and he would be in the infirmary. It was a motley crowd.' Th© average New Zealand tramp would be as a West End swell to these men. Not a whole garment amongst them ; not a pair of boots even recently sound; not a face shaved within weeks. Imagine all the destitution and poverty of New Zealand swept into one conner and magnified in degree five times; conjure up, you who have not left New Zealand's shores, a vision at which you shrink, and you may arrive at some conception of the misery before that one hall. And there were only 400 individuals in that crowd. London has nearly 20,000 men such as they; and a hundred thousand but little better. INSIDE THE SHELTER. Passing inside Medland Hall, we viewed the accommodation provided. The hall was originally a dhapel with two galleries rising above the ground floor. On all the floor space were ranged numbered sleeping berths- -great wooden coffins. In each there was a mattress covered with American cloth, and one thick quilt or rug of the same material. By rolling up his meagre clothes the sojourner obtains a pillow, and reckons himself well off for the night. The men take possession at 6 and have until 9 o'clock to settle dtown. At that hour the lights are put out. The lavatory accommodation in the building is ample, and patches of cloth and leather are kept for rendering assistance towards repairs. Each man on arrival is given the food already mentioned, and on leaving in the morning the supply is repeated, with the addition that, he also receives a paper bag with three thick slices of bread. It is almost useless trying to paint the scene inside that hall. Some got into conversation with others, but a groat oppressive sadness seemed to dominate everyone. Some disrobed and settled' to bed ear'y. Some sat disconsolately on the side of their "coffins." Some lay down fully dressed for the. night. Perhaps they had no shirt, or a newspaper did duty for one. In a corner a group produced a pack of cards and played the inevitable game. Some mended clothes, and some washed. Last this one hall provided 123,000 men with food and lodging. In addition, 51,694 were given bread and butter and tunned away for the night. Missionaries swept the streets between midnight and 4 a.m. and gave 60,457 miserable beings breakfast. In this fashion 60 tons of bread were consumed. ..";;:: Fourteen men from New Zealand were glad to sleep in that hall last year. Australia sent 91, Canada 29, India 10, Jamaica three, Cape Colony 13, United States 53, Russia eight, Germany 20, Italy five, South America four. The London County Council area provided 6600 men, Scotland 730, Ireland, 616, Wales 497, the Isle of Man 26. The cost of workintr Medland Hall is borne by the Congregational Union of England aixd Wales, and' works out at lid per man per night. So the march of the deadbeat goes on. The shelters and lodging-houses empty forth their stream of casuals, criminals, and cadgers every morning. Round the streets by day they lie and loll; mayhap searching diffidently for an honest crust, cadging for a dharitable one. They pass the day somehow. Aind then, every night, the same sad scene unfolds.