James Greenwood at Islington Workhouse Casual Ward, 1906.

AFTER 40 YEARS.

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THE AMATEUR CASUAL OF 1906.—II.

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By JAMES GREENWOOD.
(The "Amateur Casual" of 1866.)

It was too late now to back out of my bargain, however much I might have been inclined to do so by the certainty that I should be compelled to accept whatever might happen between this time and the following Friday morning. I had passed the barrier, and though dishevelled and shoeless after my encounter with the stern guardian of the portal, I was now an admitted casual, and as such entitled to all the privileges provided by the Poor Law for that class of individual. I should have to perform whatever the tasks of work — stone-breaking, wood-sawing, or oakum-picking — set me to do, blistered hands and aching back notwithstanding, through forty long hours, accommodating myself to villainous companionship, breaking bread and partaking of skilly with them,' with a dismal cell for my plank-and-hay-bag nocturnal repose. That is, if Camberwell Workhouse might be taken as affording a fair sample of casual entertainment, and that I had no reason to doubt, since I had it on good authority that it was so. There was but one system now adopted, I had been informed, throughout the whole metropolis, and that, under Government supervision, was rigidly adhered to. It was my pleasing experience, however, to presently discover that in many respects it would be my good fortune to find myself immeasurably better off than I expected.

The delightful revelations in question did not immediately dawn on me. The attendant who had beckoned me from the superintendent's desk stood by a shelf against the wall, on which was stacked a pile of small loaves of bread, and as I approached:him he held out to me a metal bowl of smoking-hot "skilly," and of which he bade me "ketch hold." With my boots and bundle to carry this was not easy, so I tucked the former, one under each arm, and took the bowl, with still a hand to spare for the little loaf of bread he gave me, and so encumbered and with my pockets all turned inside out and my naked feet and my ragged waistcoat all unbuttoned, a snap-shot at me with a camera would have yielded as curious a "portrait of a literary gentleman" as ever was produced.

A BATH AND SOME SKILLY.

The short corridor I traversed led to the bath-room, and my first glance round served to assure me that, at all events, the unspeakable disgust I was doomed to endure in connexion with my long-ago compulsory ablution as a Lambeth casual would be spared me on the present occasion. In the one case the liquid contained in the one receptacle spoke for itself of the half-dozen or so dirty fellows who had already laved in it, and contact with which so spurred my sensitive susceptibilities that had it been scalding hot instead of nearly cold I could not have scrambled out of it more actively.

At Islington, however, and as I am everlastingly grateful to be able to attest, the baths — there are two — are capacious, scrupulously clean, and perfectly fitted with hot and cold water arrangements, with a clean towel for each bather, and even the luxury of two different sorts of soap — one for the feet and legs, the other for the head and body. The bath-room, which was not so large as it might have been, considering the other purposes which it was made to serve (and of which I shall have to speak more particularly presently), was fitted on two of its sides with shelves, and there was a seat or two for the convenience of bathers engaged in disrobing.

But I was not ready for my bath yet, it was expected that I should first partake of the supper I had brought in with me. But I had no stomach for it. For the sake of making a show of being as hungry as, not being an impostor, I might have been, I made a big bite or two at my bread, and even tried a spoonful of the gruel. But I dare not venture on a second attempt. It was the same well-remembered "shiny" of Lambeth that was brought out for our breakfast into the open yard before daylight that frosty morning — brought out in a couple of stable-pails, in each of which floated the little tin saucepan that served as a ladle.

"KIND OLD DADDY.",

No other casual pauper Was present, or maybe I might, without much difficulty, have prevailed on him to assist me out of the difficulty by swallowing my skilly as well as his own — an act of kindness for which I would willingly have rewarded him by making him a present of half my ration of bread. True, I might pocket the latter! It was perhaps fortunate I did not do so, for the good-natured bath-attendant was observing me, and presently in almost compassionate tones remarked:—

" Can't you got on with your supper, old chap? It won't do you so much good if you let it stand till it gets cold."

"It's no use trying," I made answer, dolefully, "I can't tackle it, somehow."

"Been walking too far, p'raps!" And as he spoke he was making note of my dilapidated down-at-heel boots, which were those of an experienced "milestone-monger." "If you can't eat your supper, you had best get your clothes off and have your bath and get to bed. I've got your night-shirt here."

And on the instant I remembered that these last were the very words addressed to me by "kind old Daddy," who was master of the ceremonies at Lambeth Casual bathroom as I was drying my shivering body after its disgusting immersion. But on that occasion the blue rag Daddy alluded to was my only wear, while, with the frosty stars twinkling overhead, I had to cross an open space to reach the awful shed, on the stone-paved floor of which my bed was spread Was a similar fate that night in store for me? I dare not inquire. I dare not object, even if it were so.

So, as advised by the friendly attendant, I got undressed while he turned on the hot and cold water, which job completed, be assisted me in making a pell-mell bundle of my clothes wrapped about with my old jacket, and secured by its sleeves, and this he placed in a corner of one of the before-mentioned shelves. "Now, you'll know where to lay your hand on it in the morning," he remarked, "and the same with your boots if you plant 'em in this corner." And while these precautionary measures were adopted, I was growing so cold as to be glad to slip into the warm water without further delay. My bath completed, he handed me a perfectly clean bath-towel and then my nightshirt, seemingly as yet unfolded from the laundry. I put it on, and then, going before, he opened a door, and I beheld, my bedchamber, and breathed a thankful sigh.

A CASUAL'S BEDROOM.

I am quite at a loss to understand how it was that the person in authority who had informed me at Camberwell Workhouse that the casual arrangements there were in all respects the same as those adopted at every other similar establishment in London could have been so mistaken, but I was delighted to discover that in the essential particular of sleeping accommodation the difference was absolutely that of black from white. As I have already mentioned, at Camberwell the occasional pauper is put to bed in a dingy closet of such limited dimensions that an attempt to "swing a cat" there, or even a kitten, mast inevitably hare been attended with fatal results — a bare, comfortless, mere cupboard, at one end of which was a door that opened on to an inner grated cell, in which the prisoner, whose only crime was poverty, performed his day-long task of hard labour. Whereas, the casual dormitory at Islington, to put it briefly, was, in its general appointments, all that could be desired.

A scrupulously clean, and capacious ward, with painted walls and a high vaulted skylight roof, which provides for perfect ventilation, with a white-scrubbed floor, with actually strips of matting, and which, though not exactly bedside carpet answer the same purpose, and the place is comfortably heated by means of a hot-air pipe store in the middle of the room. As for the beds, of which — at a guess — there are about thirty, each one is laid on a neat little iron bedstead, and the bedding consists of a mattress with a white cover and a pillow in a white pillow-case, and a couple of warm rugs. A foot-weary poor wretch coining in out of the cold (it was a frosty night), and who, possessed of an appetite less fastidious than mine, had swallowed his bowl of hot gruel and eaten his wholesome six-ounce loaf, preparatory to the luxury of a hot bath, might well bless his lucky star that had guided him to such snug quarters.

"You are No. 9," remarked the wardsman who escorted me to my couch, which was fortunate, "No. 9" being a bedstead situated about the centre of the ward, and at no great distance from the heating apparatus. Early as at was — half-past six — I was not the first of the night's batch that had already "turned in. Several lodgers were between the sheets (figuratively speaking), and my entrance merited merely momentary curiosity.

ALL IN WHITE.

More came in, however, in quick succession, and the most remarkable feature of this part of the eight's entertainment was that their decorous appearance was quite in keeping with the clean and orderly surroundings. The majority (as I afterwards found) were in all respects most objectionable scoundrels, but they had moulted their frowsy rags and tatters in the bathroom, and now appeared each robed in a long white gown reaching from their neck to their heels, as they came hurrying in in quick succession they might have passed under other conditions for adult church choristers late for evening service.

There was one, a gaunt, white-faced young man, who looked ghostly as in the dim gas-light as he flitted in, "all in white," but he flitted no further than the next to mine; and, having taken possession, he observed to the Wardsman, “I say, if you wus to bring me summat to split in I shouldn't be making a mess on your floor all night.”

"This was promising for me as I don't think I have mentioned that the little bedsteads, though comfortable were not more than about twenty inches apart, and this was to be my close neighbour all through the long night! But, Providence be praised, it was not to be. I'll try and find you an old tin-pot," said the wardsman in response to the other's application, and when he presently brought it he made a discovery. You are in the wrong bed, young fellow," he remarked "Eleven is your number, and you are in. No. 8." And he had to turn out and remove to next-door-but-one to me. But I did not on that account get off scot-free. All night long, as I lay awake or dozed, at least a dozen times I heard the chink of that tin-pot against the bedstead-rail, announcing a forthcoming fit of coughing that made one's own chest ache to listen to.

THE NOISES OF THE NIGHT.

As was to be expected of such company, coughs were by no means few or far between, and curiously "canine" they were in tone and quality. There was the short, sharp, yelp-like, the prolonged guttural, growl, and the bark emphatic that seemed to rise to the roof and make exit through the ventilator. I hardly know which were the most wearying and irritating, the coughers or the snorers, and should unhesitatingly say the former, but for a peculiarity distinguishing the latter. The individual of ruffian breed, accustomed to sleep anyhow and anywhere, contracts a habit, not so much of snoring in his sleep, as of snorting, the sound greatly resembling that made by a horse dissatisfied with the contents of its nose-bag, nor were those enumerated the only obstacles to peaceful repose. There were those of my chamber-mates who talked in their sleep. Not exactly talked, perhaps, but delivered themselves of startlingly loud end unintelligible ejaculations, attributable, may be, to mere ordinary nightmare, under the influence of which the most innocent person might have given utterance to, or afforded a Sherlock Holmes a clue to some dreadful crime the sleeping and conscience-disturbed villain last committed. There was one in occupancy in Bedstead-avenue just opposite to where I was lying, and who, as near as may be to the "witching hour" started bolt upright in bed to hoarsely give command. "Tighter, curse you! Tighter!" And then, probably with nothing murderous on his, mind, snorted and lay down again and was heard no more And meanwhile midnight tolled from a belfry close at hand, and after that the small hours of morning added up at snail's pace till five o'clock chimed, and half an hour after in came the same brusque official who had admitted me the night previous, and who imperatively commanded: "Now, then! Get up all of you, and come out here. Shirts off, and leave them on the bed."