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Page 33
Education? Ah, there comes a pinch--and a very severe pinch it is!
About five or six years since some of the most important thoroughfares
in London, Liverpool, and many great towns have been rendered totally
impassable by the savage proceedings of gangs of young roughs. Certain
districts in Liverpool could not be traversed after dark, and the
reason was simply this--any man or woman of decent appearance was
liable to be first of all surrounded by a carefully-picked company of
blackguards; then came the clever trip-up from behind; then the victim
was left to be robbed; and then the authorities wrung their hands and
said that it was a pity, and that everything should be done. The
Liverpool youths went a little too far, and one peculiarly obnoxious
set of rascals were sent to penal servitude, while the leader of a
gang of murderers went to the gallows. But in London we have such
sights every night as never were matched in the most turbulent Italian
cities at times when the hot Southern blood was up; our great English
capital can match Venice, Rome, Palermo, Turin, or Milan in the matter
of stabbing; and, for mere wanton cruelty and thievishness, I imagine
that Hackney Road or Gray's Inn Road may equal any thoroughfare of
Fran�ois Villon's Paris. These turbulent London mobs that make night
hideous are made up of youths who have tasted the full blessings of
our educational system; they were mostly mere infants when the great
measure was passed which was to regenerate all things, and yet the
London of Swift's time was not much worse than the Southwark or
Hackney of our own day. I never for an instant dispute the general
advance which our modern society has made, and I dislike the gruesome
rubbish talked of the good old times; but I must nevertheless point
out that "fancy" building and education are not the main factors which
have aided in making us better and more seemly. The brutal rough
remains, and the gangs of scamps who infest London in various spots
are quite as bad as the beings whom Hogarth drew. They have all been
forced into the Government schools; all of them have learned to read
and write, and not one was suffered to leave school until he had
reached the age of fourteen years or passed a moderately high standard
according to the Code. Still, we have this monstrous army of the
Hopeless Poor, and they are usually massed with the Hopeful Poor--the
poor who attend the People's Palaces, and institutes, and so forth.
Alas, the Hopeless Poor are not to be dismissed with a light
phrase--they are not to be dealt with by mere pretty words! They are
creatures who remain poor and villainous because they choose to be
poor and villainous; so pity and nice theories will not cure them. The
best of us yearn toward the good poor folk, and we find a healthful
joy in aiding them; but we have a set of very different feelings
towards the Evil Brigade.
XIII.
WAIFS AND STRAYS.
When I talked[2] of the hopeless poor and of degraded men, I had in my
mind only the feeble or detestable adults who degrade our
civilisation; but I have by no means forgotten the unhappy little
souls who develop into wastrels unless they are taken away from
hideous surroundings which cramp vitality, destroy all childish
happiness, and turn into brutes poor young creatures who bear the
human image. Lately I heard one or two little stories which are
amongst the most pathetic that ever came before me in the course of
some small experience of life among the forsaken classes--or rather
let me say, the classes that used to be forsaken. These little stories
have prompted me to endeavour to deal carefully with a matter which
has cost me many sad thoughts.
[2] Essay XII.
A stray child was rescued from the streets by a society which is
extending its operations very rapidly, and the little creature was
placed as a boarder with a cottager in the country. To the utter
amazement of the good rustic folk, their queer little guest showed
complete ignorance of the commonest plants and animals; she had never
seen any pretty thing, and she was quite used to being hungry and to
satisfying her appetite with scraps of garbage. When she first saw a
daisy on the green, she gazed longingly, and then asked plaintively,
"Please, might I touch that?" When she was told that she might pluck a
few daisies she was much delighted. After her first experiences in the
botanising line she formally asked permission to pluck many wild
flowers; but she always seemed to have a dread of transgressing
against some dim law which had been hitherto represented to her mind
by the man in blue who used to watch over her miserable alley. Before
she became accustomed to receiving food at regular intervals, she
fairly touched the hearts of her foster-parents by one queer request.
The housewife was washing some Brussels sprouts, when the little stray
said timidly, "Please, may I eat a bit of that stalk?" Of course the
stringy mass was uneatable; but it turned out that the forlorn child
had been very glad to worry at the stalks from the gutter as a dog
does at an unclean bone. Another little girl was taken from the den
which she knew as home, after her parents had been sent to prison for
treating her with unspeakable cruelty. The matron of the country home
found that the child's body was scarred from neck to ankle in a
fashion which no lapse of years could efface. The explanation of the
disfigurement was very simple. "If I didn't bring in any money mother
beat me first; and then, when father came in drunk, she tied my hands
behind my back and told him to give me the buckle. Then they strapped
me on the bed and fastened my feet, and he whacked me with the
buckle-end of his strap." It sounds very horrible, does it not?
Nevertheless, the facts remain that the wretched parents were caught
in the act and convicted, and that the child must carry her scars to
her grave. No one who has not seen these lost children can form an
idea of their darkness and helplessness of mind. We all know the story
of the South Sea islanders, who said, "What a big pig!" when they
first saw a horse; one little London savage quite equalled this by
remarking, "What a little cow!" when she saw a tiny Maltese terrier
brought by a lady missionary. The child had some vague conception
regarding a cow; but, like others of her class, her notions of size,
form, and colour, were quite cloudy. Another of these city phenomena
did not know how to blow out a candle; and in many cases it is most
difficult to persuade those newly reclaimed to go to bed without
keeping their boots on. We cannot call such beings barbarians, because
"barbarian" implies something wild, strong, and even noble; yet, to
our shame, we must call them savages, and we must own that they are
born and bred within easy gunshot distance of our centres of culture,
enlightenment, and luxury. They swarm, do these children of suffering:
and easy-going people have no idea of the density of the savagery amid
which such scions of our noble English race are reared. A gentleman
once offered sixpence to a little girl who appeared before him dressed
in a single garment which seemed to have been roughly made from some
sort of sacking. He expected to see her snatch at the coin with all
the eagerness of the ordinary hardy street-arab; but she showed her
jagged brown teeth, and said huskily, "No! Big money!" A lady,
divining with the rapid feminine instinct what was meant by the
enigmatic muttering, explained, "She does not know the sixpence. She
has had coppers to spend before." And so it turned out to be.
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