The Down and Out King - 23

EMILY

My unfortunate friends, pray look around,

And tell me for what is this place renowned;

The room is large, but the windows are small,

But that don't much matter at all at all.

A pint of skilly for your supper to drink;

But of sleep you cannot get a wink.

You may lay on the boards or the chilly floor,

About as warm as a North American shore.

Finally my week of painfully watching the poor casuals is over, and I can now do all that I can in terms of their food to make their stay more enjoyable. I told the cook to not only put in milk but treacle the first night, and went down the next morning  to talk to the casual women about to be released about how they found their porridge now.

The first one I spoke to said this. "We were thirsty and hungry - but when we tasted our gruel, our only drink, it was sweetened to nauseousness with treacle! It was, indeed, to all intents undrinkable."

Another commented that anyone with a grain of common sense should realise the effect on the system of taking this sort of stuff immediately after a warm bath, following a wetting. “In fact,” she said, “the diet produces a peculiarly loosened feeling in the skin, as if all the pores are open, which makes it very hard to work. I usually perspire little, but this morning, while working, I was again and again in a profuse perspiration, and this produced a feeling of weakness, and culminated in a sharp attack of diarrhoea. Anyone who thinks will see that this would only be a natural result of the diet. We were terribly hungry, and ate our bread; this made us still more thirsty, but there was nothing to quench our thirst but the thick, sweet gruel - very good in quality, but most nauseous.”

The third one commented, “The thirst we suffered in the night can be imagined better than described. 'I was thirsty and ye gave me no drink,' kept running through my mind whenever I turned my eyes up to spell out the words of 'Jesus only' on your wall there.”

The first came in again, “This was our worst night; we were very weary, but could get no ease; we fell into restless slumber, to wake again and again from thirst or cold or some pain caused by our bed. Long before we were called we were wide awake, longing to get up. About six o'clock, probably, our cell door was unlocked, and we were told to dress. We hastened to the bath-room and drank eagerly at the tap. Our wet clothes were lying just where we left them. They were still quite damp and our boots wet through. Had we known, we might have left them in a rather different position, on some hot
pipes; but we thought they were sure to be stoved, as the portress knew we had taken shelter from pouring rain. We had told her we could not reach our friends in the neighbouring town because of it. There was nothing to do but to put our wet things on and set to work.”

Back to the second woman, “A woman brought us a pair of men's boots, very damp, with blacking and brushes, and told us to polish them for her before we had our breakfast. We did this, which doubtless was extra, and were rewarded with a mug of her coffee, with one mug of the same sort of sickly gruel, and a thick slice of bread. The coffee was such a treat. Could you not do that here regularly? Replace the awful gruel with coffee?”

I have made some enquiries since, and have found at least one workhouse where the gruel is
replaced by coffee, though this is contrary to regulations. Here, of course, we now make the porridge fresh each morning, but how surprised I was to find that adding treacle and milk to the porridge
seemed to make the women more unhappy, if anything.

How many tons of good oatmeal must be wasted every year! It is absolute waste, as they were told to empty their porridge mugs of the night before down the w.c., and put them away clean. So not even the pigs have the benefit of it! I must check with John about that.

One of the women I had interviewed had another problem which came to my attention later. Apparently there was no room to sit in, or seat, except a short form, just big enough for two, in the bathroom. No table - and mugs and bread were put on a window-sill. The women sat on the form by a window, a few inches open, that looked on some shrubs, and as they sat there a man - a pauper - passed and stared in. They moved away. He went, and they again took their seats, but presently he returned and stood staring in. They had fled to either side when we saw him coming, but presently one peeped, and there he was, standing staring in. She gave him some sharp words and
ordered him off; he disappeared.

Evidently this is a means of communication between men and women. The window, however, does not open wide so he could neither come in nor them out, but conversation would be easy.

My complainent then told me about the rest of their day. She said, “Presently the portress came, very brisk and sharp. I was told to clean and stone a larder some distance off. We had already done a little work while waiting. Knowing we should have to do it, we folded our blankets, washed our
pots, and cleaned the bath-room taps. All was made clean and tidy when the portress came, but we were not to get off so easily! My friend was told to stone the place completely through, including the
three cells not used (which looked clean), to black-lead the hot-water pipes all down the passage, dust everywhere thoroughly, and clean the step. Meanwhile I had first to do some shelves and then
stone a spiral stair and the floor of a small larder, and then go on to other work. We did not dawdle, but worked steadily on, and pleased the portress so much that eventually she said we might go that day. We could not finish our task by eleven, so she kindly gave us our dinner and let us go after it, saying we should have time to reach our friends which is what we wish to do now.” I did not keep them any longer.

The next day I interviewed a few others of the casual women. I asked how they had spent their time and if they were satisfied with the food.

“We had a good portress,” one said. “She was a decent woman and kind to us. She said she "didn't do it for everyone," when she afterwards brought us part of her dinner.”

“What sort of jobs were you set to do?” I asked.

“After finishing cleaning the larder, the portress set me to turn out bundles, which were stacked
in compartments on either side of a long, high room, right up to the ceiling. I had a high pair of steps, and was to take each bundle out and dust it with a brush, sweep out the compartment, and replace it. Each parcel, as a rule, was wrapped in rough linen wrappings, but a considerable number of things were unparcelled, and some dirty and foul-smelling - probably they had been only stoved and put away. All the bundles which were not tightly tied were more or less moth-eaten.”

I told her that I would see that the bundles were all stoved at once.

I knew that what she said was true. It makes my heart ache to see these clothes in such a state,
remembering that they were all that some poor people possessed. I often noticed the lack of care with regard to destitute women's clothing, having seen girls going out of the workhouse whose clothes were so crumpled, even when decent, that everyone stared at them - and had received from poor people many complaints that their clothes were lost or spoiled.

After seeing the state of this store-room I can well believe it. Behind the bundles were cobwebs simply festooned with moths. They had attacked the bundles at every opening. The coverings kept them off, but some bundles were rotten, and one sad thing was that if a bundle was rather more respectable, and contained more clothes, it was not so tightly tied, and was, therefore, more open to attack. Besides, not a few things were quite unprotected and swarming. The place was heated with pipes. A better breeding ground for moths could hardly be imagined.

It occurred to me that we might have a solution which might prevent most of the mischief. If each
bundle is provided with two wrappers, and the second one tied over the openings of the first, the moths could not get in. Besides this, however, the whole should be examined more, frequently.

One of her companions that I was questioning commented on the work she had done. She said she was told to stone the floor. “We had rough aprons given us to work in; but I should like to mention, as a subject for thought, that all this rough, hard work naturally made our ordinary clothes dirty, and will soon wear them out. Yet in the workhouse, as bundles are confiscated, there is no chance to change, and no opportunity to wash a garment. In the common lodging-house you can wash your clothes, but not yourself; in the workhouse you can wash yourself, but not your clothes! Surely the two things are both necessary.”

“And how did you find the food?” I asked, trying to get on with my survey.

“We had bread and cheese given us for dinner; and were allowed to mash our last tea with water from the bath tap.”

“Did you have the gruel this morning?”

“Yes, and it was not at all unpleasant as is often the case.”

Faint praise indeed, but at least not abject criticism. I had told the cook to cut the amount of treacle by half, and that obviously made it more palatable.