In Darkest London by Unknown

Author:Unknown
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Poor--England--London, Lodging houses--England--London, London (England)--Social conditions
Publisher: Standard Ebooks
Published: 2025-11-11T19:10:19+00:00

IX

Kitty and the Widow Who Drugged

What is it that drives women to the Casual Ward? The unthinking will answer at a venture, drink, depravity, or in exceptional cases, persistent misfortune. The class of women which seeks the shelter of the House in Great Guildford Street is drawn from London and the country. The former, in many cases, are casual in every sense of the word. Sometimes an entire family is landed miles away from their home, having lost the excursion train. In such case the police send them to the Metropolitan Asylums Board Office, under the arches of Hungerford Bridge, on the Victoria Embankment. They are given tickets of admission to the workhouse, and the mother and children are put together, while the husband goes to the men’s ward.

Sometimes a woman suspected of professional begging gets an order for the Casual Ward with her baby, in which case the officials communicate with the Royal Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children. The Society has no jurisdiction inside the House, but an inspector will lurk outside, and, on the appearance of the suspected with her children, he will march her off to the police court, where he will apply for a summons against her for neglect. In the majority of instances she will go to prison for a month.

This seems to me to be one of the greatest abuses of the system. It is not only the professional beggar who may be seized on, towards the poor woman who comes in with her baby in a verminous or dirty condition, the same procedure is enacted; having enjoyed the respite of a night’s shelter, the unfortunate creature is seized on as she emerges with her child.

In some few cases professional beggars may be neglectful or unkind to their children. Personally, I have many times tried to get a definition of the term “professional.” So far as I can gather the authorities lay it down that a “professional” beggar is one who gets his living by the getting of alms. An itinerant street seller who occasionally begs does not come under the same heading. It must be remembered, however, that if a woman with young children stands in the street selling matches, or some other article, she runs the risk of being charged with exposing her children, and once again prison is the conclusion of the whole matter.

What, then, is the “professional” beggar to do? The root cause of this attempt to gather a livelihood is the housing shortage. It is not possible to pay the rent demanded for even the poorest room unless one member of the family is in receipt of a steady wage. Many of these beggars have lost their husbands, and have no trade by which they can support their family. Even if they had a trade they would have no place in which to ply it. For once a family has been dispossessed of a roof tree, it is unimaginably difficult for them to find another resting place.

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