WHERE LONDON'S HOMELESS WANDERERS SLEEP. A Night on the Embankment by a Midnight Wanderer.

Te Aroha News, Volume IV, Issue 182, 11 December 1886, Page 2

WHERE LONDON'S HOMELESS WANDERERS SLEEP. A Night on the Embankment by a Midnight Wanderer.

Bi<; Ben chime? 12. The harvest moon i hangs in the pale night sky, and a cold I ea?t wind ia blowing up the Thames. Cub after cib and hansom after hansom ru«h across Westminister Bridge ; knots of men I and women are assembled at the street | coiners round Parliament-square, but on j the Embankment it is growing very quiot. As I enter the broad road into that great open dormitory, and slowly w ander down to where the homeless and the poor are said to spend their nights, the noise or the town becomes stilled ; and soon all that is left of it is a dull, heavy murmur, mixed with the rustling of she piants, the fchadow of whose | foliage in the moonshine falls as a coverlet of dark laco on the white flag-tone*.'. Tho peats are emptj ; the gu.O3ts iv tin? department of the open-uir hotel have not I arrived Down to tho Needle not a human being is seen except four tall policemen wrapped in their unpiofitablc looking- capes. Then we come to the lonely figure of a man, who has thrown himself down, and is breathing heavily as his head drops low on hi-i choet and his aim fallv over tn6 form Nearer Blackfriars Bridge the seats aro more frequented. In twos and thiees tho men fit, together— some old, with jellow, wrinkled face, white beard?, and beut | backs ; other?, middle-aged men, drunken and sulky-looking, men with vice and crime stamped on thoir faces ; aud tlight lank} lad&, their raggod coats buttoned up to their throats, and thei/ shoulders diawn up with cold and pos&ibly with hunger. Most of them aro talking, a few smoking, all regardless of the occasional presence of a " lady " among them. But of tho latter the few, and they sit silently and listlessly among the men. The hour is late, but the wing known as Blackfriar* Bridge is occupied. Seven men sit in the tir.»t niche, and one woman, under v. ho=-e shawl a child, ita head resting on a woman's knee, is quietly asleep. Sho is of middle age, and out of the white handkerchief which is tied over her face looks strangely dark and forbidding. Gloomily sho stares before her, heeding neither the men around her nor the pas?ers by. In the other three recesses on the samo side, which is least exposed to the wind, moro mon are citting, leaning, crouching, in attitudes which make it impossible to discern the human figure under the ragp, Later it becomes more silent ; and as 1 saunter back on the opposite side of the bridge I find an empty niche, where I sit down on the seat, comparing the wide stone bench to the narrowcushioned seats of one of our groat railways, and deciding that a night on Black friarp Bridge would be pleaeanter than a night in a hot, dusty railway carriage. But I have scarcely had time to calculate that a dozen men could easily be seated in the iece?* when I am joined by two loiterers who cit down beside me. They are a ruan and a young girl — he surly-looking and mute ; ihe fresh and rosy, and open to a chat "These ar9 cold quarters,'' I venture to saj, carelessly and amiably. " Very cold for them poor coves what stop all the night. We ain't going to do it; we only came out for a walk." she says, coining closer, and emiling broadly and good-naturedly. He, on being questioned, admits that he ha« spent many a night on " that "ere teat,'" that ifc is " deuced cold," and that he goes to work at four o'clock.' Then the two, who for this once are only amateur occupiers of the bridge, depart side by side, and I, too, resume my wanderings. I have counted 26 sleepers on the bridge. Returning to the Embankment, I find that some of th>> dormitories aro now well filled. Shivoringly an old woman complains oT the " droadful cold" before she leans back among her male companione ; some of tho seats are crowded, and on some a whole compartment is taken up by one occupant, whose pillow is a email pile of now&papers. Now and then one of the men gets up shivering with cold, and runs, his hands thrust into his. pockets, up and down in front of a feat, keeping an eye on his share of it. "From under the arch of Waterloe Bridge there rises a heavy anore. In the da^c hole formed by the timber stationed under the arch another man is coughing a rough cough, which sounda the more terrible as it is mingled with the thin, shrill of the night wind, which gains in strength aa it grows later. Between Blackfriars and Waterloo Bridge there was an open space loading into Bouverie-street. It is enclosed by a temporary wooden wall, efay with the most cunning devices of London advertisers. The

rickety gate leading to it stands ajar all day and night, and behind and all about this open space are scattered heaps ot stone and earth, half overgrown with grass and weeds. Into this gate I enter, attracted by some dark shadows in the furthest cornershadows which when approached become a ragged, dirty mass of humanity. Againßt the wall, among the stones, on the damp grass and in the weeds, their heads are laid. .Newspaper placards, the tatters of which flutter hither and thither, cover parts of their bodies, and still they lie, heeding no footsteps, no voice, not even the dazzling bull's-eye which a City policeman, who has joined me, turns fully upon them. " I can Bhow you more of them ; they are here every night," he says, leading the way to another part of the enclosure. There again they lie— not one, not two, but scores of them, huddled together like one immense mass of rags, a ghastly sight undor the clear sky, and by the side or the proud mansions. Once a young boy groans and stirs in his sleep as the glaring rays touch him, but Le only turns away from the light and falls asleep once more. "We never - disturb them," says my newlyacquired friend, "as long as they keep quiet, Poor devils ! they have no place to go to ; and night after night they come about midnight, and are off again with the daylight. There are fewer here to-night than I have seen for three months past ; it mustbe the eastwind which drives them away from the river. As soon as they begin to be noisy or make themselves objectionable in any way they are sent off, but it is rarely that we have to do that." "Suppose several of the men get unruly, would it not be rather a hard task for you to master them single-handed ?" "No fear of that. I have only to throw my bull's eye along the Embankment (I can throw the light a mile in any direction) and shake iii for a moment, and my mate is down here at once. But the poor wretches don't attempt anything of the kind, except when now and then a drunken fellow comes and squats down among them, and then they are only too glad to get rid of him One other'occasion when they are tempted to become unruly is when a drunken gent tumbles among them. They are then not above doing a little in the pickpocketing line and the poor gent is almost sure to bo minus watch and coin when he wakes up.' With this the policeman turns round, and I pursue my way back to St Stephen's, each little turret of which stands out clear and bold against the cloudless starry sky. Thirty-eight sleepers on the Embankment between Blackfriars and Waterloo Bridge have I passed Alas! the most pitiful of the sights of the cold September night is reserved to the last. An old, old woman rest-! on the seat ; her head is covered with a black lace bonnet, which she has pushed forward over a pad, pinched face. A thin shawl over a thinner dress is all she has to keep the chill air out ; her trembling hand grasps the back of the seat, and shrinkingly she turns her head away and pretends to be asleep. Parliament street is empty ; the Whitehall Horse Guards have closed the shutters of their narrow quarters, and one lonely redcoated soldier stalks up and down in front of the long row of Government offices. Now one look at Trafalgar Square. Save for a group of policemen standing about, it is apparently deserted. But no ; on the seats and all along the stone step \i hich runs along behind the fountain there are slight signs and sounds of life ; and now, indeed, I see that every seat is closely packed with men and women, more respectable-looking than those I have encountered before, but all evidently settled for the night And behind thorn, under the grey wall from the : one flight of steps across to the other, there i ia not a square foot of open space to be ! found Crowded cloeely together they lie ; ' it i? impossible to «ay whether they are old or young, tor their faces are mostly covered '■ with hats, handkerchiefs, or pieces of ! newspaper. There aro 75 of them, all counted, and 25 more have taken their position on the seats above in front of the National Gallery. A hundred homeless creatures in Trafalgar Square, 40 more on the Embankment between Westminster and Blackfriare, 26 on Blackfriar's Bridge, and a policeman's verdict that there aro I fewer to-night than there have been for the ! last three months — that is the result of one night's ramble 1 ''Slumming" has gone out of fashion; but would it not be worth \^hile for the exslummers to go out into the highways of London and to stretch oat a helping hand to "some forlorn and shipwrecked brother" who spends his days in fruitless search for work and his nights in" bitter misery ?