III + 

The Hard-Faced Woman of Charity Square + 

I went straight from the Shelter to the Hackney Labour Exchange. There is something about a Government department that casts a shadow on the freeborn spirit. You may tell yourself that you are independent of its machinations, apart from its tyrannies, but as you approach you feel that fluttering of the heart which spells apprehension. As an indignant ratepayer you bluster and get rid of your inhibition to indignation. As a member of the destitute class no such resource is open to you. You begin to have doubts as to your right to live; you would not be surprised to read your own sentence of extermination. + 

I felt very oppressed when I entered the Hackney Labour Exchange. I was asked my name, business, place and date of last employment and watched, with increasing alarm, my replies being entered in the book. When it was found that I could cook, signs of animation appeared on the official countenance, but my total lack of testimonials spoiled my chance. Though my soufflé were light as air, it would avail me nothing without a reference. My only hope, it seemed, was in itinerant charing, and I was given some three or four addresses and told to chance my luck. It is, I think, a testimony to the part externals play, throughout every phase of society, that during my experiences as an outcast I was never once challenged as to my bona fides. I was accepted at face value; my soiled raincoat covered a multitude of doubts, my shabby, pathetic little hat with a faded bunch of ribbon stopped all query, while my method of speech was by no means so out of the ordinary as people may suppose. + 

It is interesting to note that the majority of Londoners speak much better nowadays, than, say, within the last ten or fifteen years. Among the younger outcasts the Cockney twang is very rare; their grammar may be faulty, but their intonation is astonishingly correct. For this reason, I suppose, my own accent did not raise comment, while as for manners and customs, nowhere is a more rigid code of etiquette exacted than in a common lodging-house⁠—as I shall have occasion to point out. To a great extent the same standard is observed in Mare Street. You ask no impertinent questions, you answer civilly when spoken to, and the newest comer waits to be addressed. At any rate, for whatever reason, I was never once challenged as to my origins. I was never asked by my companions if I had seen better days, or interrogated as to why I had come down. Personally, I found it infinitely stimulating to be reckoned up apart from the social value set by clothes and other trifles. In the bedrock of life, these things slip past you, and you are gauged by character alone. + 

I remember looking at the list of addresses on that dull and bitter morning, wondering how women found the courage to go on, day after day, looking for work when I, who had been at it only for a few hours, already felt dejected. It was ten o’clock, but even so early the shadow of that problem which nightly must be faced was on me; the problem that the outcast walks with all the day⁠—⁠how and where to find a bed. It was this, I think, that spurred me to sudden effort. I went to the nearest place; a dull, unhappy looking house, let out in floors. The mistress apparently did not like the look of me⁠—at any rate she said she had not any work. I suddenly felt utterly valueless⁠—it was the bitterest slap that I had ever had. Hurt vanity, cold and fatigue (remember I had not slept all night), had brought me to a sorry pass. I have always tried to endure physical hardship without flinching, but ever since my childhood there has been one thing I cannot bear without tears. When my hands get frozen, so that my nails ache with the cold, I inevitably weep! It is a deplorable confession, and I regret it⁠—but it is so, and on that morning I stood in Hackney Road and cried like a little child. + 

I did not cry for long, unheeded. I wish I had words that adequately could describe what happened, the sudden blessed sense of comfort that warmed my soul. Through my distress there loomed the large and kindly figure of a workman. + 

“What’s wrong?” he said. + 

“I⁠—I’m cold,” said I. + 

“It’s a bitter morning,” he answered. “What you wants is a cup o’ cawfee.” + 

I nodded, and more with the desire to terminate the interview than any hope of assistance, I told him that I hadn’t any money. + 

“That’s all right,” he said, “I’ll treat you.” + 

There was nothing but the purest chivalry in the invitation. He was distressed that I was cold and, manlike, wanted to give me succour. He took me to one of the little eating houses which abound in Hackney, and ordered a steaming bowl of hot, sweet coffee. + 

“Bread and butter?” he asked, cheerily. I shook my head, I could not swallow any food. He watched me revive with real pleasure, and told me to take my time. I explained I was a cook and he encouraged me to hope for work. He was employed on the railway and, as he delicately hinted, was well able to afford to pay my score. When I had finished the coffee, with a shy gesture he offered me some coppers. “It’ll help a bit,” said he. + 

I thanked him⁠—never have thanks been more sincere⁠—but I could not take the money, and we parted with a cheery good morning in the street outside. I suppose nothing like this could have happened outside a poor district. In a more sophisticated quarter one would have expected a less generous sequel. But my workman was of finer stuff. He never even asked my name. A Knight Errant on the road of life, he gave simple and beautiful service, unsought and unrewarded. + 

After this, I felt prepared to wrestle with beasts at Ephesus; I determined at least I would get a charing job. Luck was with me, for at the third house I called at, I was told I could clean steps, and was given a pail of water, some hearthstone, and a flannel. I was not allowed inside the door and I set to work on one of the most hideous tasks that female flesh is heir to. And here I must protest against this business of step-cleaning; it should be abolished either by fire or Act of Parliament. It is a loathsome job, unfit for man or beast, and it has nothing of the aesthetic to condone its degradation. There can be no more hideous sight than hearthstoned steps, and I hope that everyone who indulges in such monstrosities, will have their carpets ground to pieces by the surplus white brought in from outside. + 

I cleaned those steps and the rage within my heart warmed the cold water. I did them very badly⁠—I know that⁠—and I am not sorry. If step cleaners were less conscientious it would be a good thing for them, and “larn” householders to be content with the scrubbing brush. I was given threepence for the job and then with a sudden, kindly thought, the mistress added another penny. + 

Fourpence! The first fourpence I had ever earned by manual labour. It was a proud thought, but my hands felt horribly stiff all the same. I noticed other cleaners at work about the district⁠—the vogue lingers in the suburbs, and gives opportunity to women on the road to earn a few pence. But I had had enough of Hackney. There was no hope of work for me there, and I could not go back to the Shelter for a second night’s lodging. Adventure called me farther on; and I did a rash deed. I spent twopence of my fourpence on a tram ride to the Angel. + 

It now became pressingly apparent that something urgent must be done. To begin with, I was very hungry; more hungry than I had been for years. Material considerations of this sort do not usually affect women of the middle-class⁠—food descends like manna at stated intervals, often to be grumbled at. But to a woman without a home, with only the streets as a permanent abiding place, food (with sleep) is the main interest of existence. I stood at the top of the Pentonville Road and wondered how I should get a meal. And then inspiration seized me. I went into a tobacconist’s and bought two boxes of matches; it would be a strange thing if I could not make at least fifty percent profit. + 

I learnt very much in my first essay as a street saleswoman. The same principles apply to this as to other branches of commerce. You must find a new angle of approach. It is worse than useless to stand in the gutter, a pile of matchboxes in your outstretched hand, an anguished look upon your stony face; such tactics merely irritate. The passerby reasons that if he buys a box, a whole pile will still remain, and his few pence will do but little to mitigate the whole sum of your misery. No, the secret of success is this: stand on the pavement⁠—if you are quiet and well-behaved the police will not interfere with you⁠—your matches in your pocket, keep a sharp look out and choose your man. Then, when you see a likely victim, bear down upon him with a bright smile and a cheery word, and a hundred to one you will land him. That afternoon I did quite well. I sold my matches for fourpence each, a net profit of sixpence, and then, heedlessly rash, I went to an eating house and gorged on sausage and onions. + 

There are quite a number of matchsellers who have not thought out their technique at all, but continue, day after day, at the same pitch, with the same hopeless look of wretchedness. The older hands have developed a sturdy kind of cheeriness. One old lady of my acquaintance has evolved a heavy jollity that carries all before it. She is one of the privileged few who are admitted to some of the West End bars, and she always sells her wares. She is wise enough to insist that the purchasers shall keep their matches. It rankles in the mind of the most generous man if he is continually called on to hand over money⁠—even the smallest sum⁠—without value received. This consideration is by no means regarded by all the merchants of the kerb. There is an ill-tempered woman in the West End who audibly curses any customer who takes matches in return for money. She has a fine flow of invective and it is amusing to hear her, but, broadly and generally, the method cannot be recommended. + 

There are a certain number of women who, day after day, sell matches. Others like myself take it up as an odd job to help them over a bad stile. It is astonishing, however, that so many manage to make some sort of a living, though very few achieve even the semblance of a home. For the outcast has no abiding place; and always, in hot or cold weather, when it is wet and when it is dry, there remains the eternal problem⁠—where and how to get a bed. + 

That particular problem was pressing on me acutely when I came out of the eating house. I went to the nearest Labour Exchange and went through the same performance as at Hackney. There was no chance of my getting a place as cook, but they gave me the address of a flat near Rosebury Avenue, where a charwoman was required. It was one of those sad-looking flats which seem to be furnished in a monotone of drab. The lady of the house was drab also, even her little baby daughter was of the same depressing hue. She gazed at me with a cold, appraising eye, and I realised she did not regard me as a human person; I was merely someone to do the dirty work. Well, I did it. I laboured hard for over an hour. I swept the flat, I washed the kitchen and the passage, beat the mats and shook a fair-sized carpet out of the window, cleaned the knives and peeled some potatoes. During the whole hour I was never left one moment alone. The woman stood and watched me, and I could feel suspicion oozing from her every pore. Suspicion that intrinsically I was a thief and only wanted opportunity to pocket a potato, secrete a knife, or make away with the carpet. + 

I have always understood that it is an unwritten law for an itinerant char to be offered tea, and secretly I hoped my employer would observe the tradition. Vain illusion, absurd expectancy! Such a thought never occurred to her. It would doubtless have been, from her point of view, a serious violation of the social code. Her husband, I think, must have been a bank clerk, or, possibly, in the insurance world, and people were tabulated carefully in their estimation. There are, as I discovered, very many women just like this. They are quite unmoved by the hunger or misfortune of a fellow woman, unless she be of their own class. Outside their particular little preserve misfortune does not exist. She told me that would do for the day and offered me ninepence. As a good trades unionist, I demanded the market rate of a shilling. + 

“I shan’t pay any more than ninepence,” the hard-faced woman said coldly, and I was too tired to argue the point. I was beginning to appreciate what it means to do manual labour for a living. I suppose I was still influenced by my normal valuation of ninepence, otherwise I cannot account for my inexcusable extravagance. I actually bought myself a cup of tea and a piece of cake, which reduced my capital to fourpence! Four coppers between me and a night in the street. It sounds romantic, but there is a grim hardness about the reality, difficult, if not impossible, for inexperience to gauge. When one has become acclimatised to being homeless, the bed problem, though always there, is less urgent, but I was still too new to take things philosophically. It had begun to rain, and to be on the streets when it is wet is to touch the very dregs of misery. + 

Later I was to find myself very often in the same predicament, but it is always the first impact that tells, and I began to be just a little frightened. I spent my fourpence on four boxes of matches and walked from King’s Cross to the Holborn end of Shaftesbury Avenue. It was a favourite hunting ground of mine in my outcast days, not so crowded as Piccadilly Circus and with far less competition, and generally I found it lucky. + 

I hung about the pavement, but my star was not in the ascendant, I could not spot a likely client. My judgment seemed to leave me, I lost initiative and the result was immediately apparent. None of the passersby reacted to me⁠—I was just one of the crowd and, therefore, negligible. The same sort of thing happens at any social gathering. You either make yourself felt or you are unnoticed; if you do not project your personality, the stream passes by and leaves you on one side. + 

I had almost relapsed into the woebegone condition that I have described above when of a sudden the feeling that I must do something roused me. Two of my matchboxes were soaked through, which reduced my chances of a bed by half. I put them in my pocket, took myself firmly in hand, and assumed a bright demeanour. I studied the faces of the men who passed me as closely as though I were interviewing them for a job, but I did not feel that answering spark of reciprocity which tells you have registered an impression, until coming towards me from Piccadilly I saw a young man and a girl. They were young and obviously in love, and perfectly indifferent to streaming rain, though neither had an umbrella. I went forward quickly and thrust a box in front of the young man with a smile and a joking word. + 

Just for an instant Fate trembled in the balance⁠—and then the young man took the matches and handed me a shilling, and I was saved. + 

It will doubtless be noticed that I have particularised “men” when discussing how to deal with prospective buyers. I do not mention women for the reason that I never found any of my own sex who would buy from me. Very soon I gave up trying, for it was not only their refusal to spend a penny that was hurtful, but their very obvious belief in my utter worthlessness. It is curious, but it is true, that the majority of our sex cannot judge a woman apart from her surroundings. Had any of the “ladies” who looked at me with such repulsion found me living in a poor, but clean room in obvious but decent destitution, I feel sure that they would have given me every help, but to the eyes of the ordinary woman environment is what counts and for that reason I have found it very difficult to enlist the support of my own sex for their sisters without a home. + 

Now, it is not only the condition of the public lodging-houses of which I have to complain, but the utter inadequacy of their number in relation to the homeless population. + 

The centre and West End of London is served only by one licensed establishment, in Kennedy Court, off Holborn. There are very few on the north side of the river. The south side is better served, but the total number of these places is extraordinarily small when we remember that there are perennially some thousands of women without permanent sleeping accommodation, women who, when they can earn enough for a lodging, should surely be able to find one within reasonable distance of any part of London. + 

I was quite at sea as to where I could get a bed, and, as usual, I took counsel with the nearest policeman. Under his direction I found my way to a place, the like of which I could not have imagined. + 