THE PEOPLE OF THE ABYSS
by Jack London
CHAPTER X--CARRYING THE BANNER
"To carry the banner" means to walk the streets all night; and I,
with the figurative emblem hoisted, went out to see what I could
see. Men and women walk the streets at night all over this great
city, but I selected the West End, making Leicester Square my base,
and scouting about from the Thames Embankment to Hyde Park.
The rain was falling heavily when the theatres let out, and the
brilliant throng which poured from the places of amusement was hard
put to find cabs. The streets were so many wild rivers of cabs,
most of which were engaged, however; and here I saw the desperate
attempts of ragged men and boys to get a shelter from the night by
procuring cabs for the cabless ladies and gentlemen. I use the word
"desperate" advisedly, for these wretched, homeless ones were
gambling a soaking against a bed; and most of them, I took notice,
got the soaking and missed the bed. Now, to go through a stormy
night with wet clothes, and, in addition, to be ill nourished and
not to have tasted meat for a week or a month, is about as severe a
hardship as a man can undergo. Well fed and well clad, I have
travelled all day with the spirit thermometer down to seventy-four
degrees below zero--one hundred and six degrees of frost {1}; and
though I suffered, it was a mere nothing compared with carrying the
banner for a night, ill fed, ill clad, and soaking wet.
The streets grew very quiet and lonely after the theatre crowd had
gone home. Only were to be seen the ubiquitous policemen, flashing
their dark lanterns into doorways and alleys, and men and women and
boys taking shelter in the lee of buildings from the wind and rain.
Piccadilly, however, was not quite so deserted. Its pavements were
brightened by well-dressed women without escort, and there was more
life and action there than elsewhere, due to the process of finding
escort. But by three o'clock the last of them had vanished, and it
was then indeed lonely.
At half-past one the steady downpour ceased, and only showers fell
thereafter. The homeless folk came away from the protection of the
buildings, and slouched up and down and everywhere, in order to rush
up the circulation and keep warm.
One old woman, between fifty and sixty, a sheer wreck, I had noticed
earlier in the night standing in Piccadilly, not far from Leicester
Square. She seemed to have neither the sense nor the strength to
get out of the rain or keep walking, but stood stupidly, whenever
she got the chance, meditating on past days, I imagine, when life
was young and blood was warm. But she did not get the chance often.
She was moved on by every policeman, and it required an average of
six moves to send her doddering off one man's beat and on to
another's. By three o'clock, she had progressed as far as St. James
Street, and as the clocks were striking four I saw her sleeping
soundly against the iron railings of Green Park. A brisk shower was
falling at the time, and she must have been drenched to the skin.
Now, said I, at one o'clock, to myself; consider that you are a poor
young man, penniless, in London Town, and that to-morrow you must
look for work. It is necessary, therefore, that you get some sleep
in order that you may have strength to look for work and to do work
in case you find it.
So I sat down on the stone steps of a building. Five minutes later
a policeman was looking at me. My eyes were wide open, so he only
grunted and passed on. Ten minutes later my head was on my knees, I
was dozing, and the same policeman was saying gruffly, "'Ere, you,
get outa that!"
I got. And, like the old woman, I continued to get; for every time
I dozed, a policeman was there to rout me along again. Not long
after, when I had given this up, I was walking with a young Londoner
(who had been out to the colonies and wished he were out to them
again), when I noticed an open passage leading under a building and
disappearing in darkness. A low iron gate barred the entrance.
"Come on," I said. "Let's climb over and get a good sleep."
"Wot?" he answered, recoiling from me. "An' get run in fer three
months! Blimey if I do!"
Later on I was passing Hyde Park with a young boy of fourteen or
fifteen, a most wretched-looking youth, gaunt and hollow-eyed and
sick.
"Let's go over the fence," I proposed, "and crawl into the shrubbery
for a sleep. The bobbies couldn't find us there."
"No fear," he answered. "There's the park guardians, and they'd run
you in for six months."
Times have changed, alas! When I was a youngster I used to read of
homeless boys sleeping in doorways. Already the thing has become a
tradition. As a stock situation it will doubtless linger in
literature for a century to come, but as a cold fact it has ceased
to be. Here are the doorways, and here are the boys, but happy
conjunctions are no longer effected. The doorways remain empty, and
the boys keep awake and carry the banner.
"I was down under the arches," grumbled another young fellow. By
"arches" he meant the shore arches where begin the bridges that span
the Thames. "I was down under the arches wen it was ryning its
'ardest, an' a bobby comes in an' chyses me out. But I come back,
an' 'e come too. ''Ere,' sez 'e, 'wot you doin' 'ere?' An' out I
goes, but I sez, 'Think I want ter pinch [steal] the bleedin'
bridge?'"
Among those who carry the banner, Green Park has the reputation of
opening its gates earlier than the other parks, and at quarter-past
four in the morning, I, and many more, entered Green Park. It was
raining again, but they were worn out with the night's walking, and
they were down on the benches and asleep at once. Many of the men
stretched out full length on the dripping wet grass, and, with the
rain falling steadily upon them, were sleeping the sleep of
exhaustion.
And now I wish to criticise the powers that be. They ARE the
powers, therefore they may decree whatever they please; so I make
bold only to criticise the ridiculousness of their decrees. All
night long they make the homeless ones walk up and down. They drive
them out of doors and passages, and lock them out of the parks. The
evident intention of all this is to deprive them of sleep. Well and
good, the powers have the power to deprive them of sleep, or of
anything else for that matter; but why under the sun do they open
the gates of the parks at five o'clock in the morning and let the
homeless ones go inside and sleep? If it is their intention to
deprive them of sleep, why do they let them sleep after five in the
morning? And if it is not their intention to deprive them of sleep,
why don't they let them sleep earlier in the night?
In this connection, I will say that I came by Green Park that same
day, at one in the afternoon, and that I counted scores of the
ragged wretches asleep in the grass. It was Sunday afternoon, the
sun was fitfully appearing, and the well-dressed West Enders, with
their wives and progeny, were out by thousands, taking the air. It
was not a pleasant sight for them, those horrible, unkempt, sleeping
vagabonds; while the vagabonds themselves, I know, would rather have
done their sleeping the night before.
And so, dear soft people, should you ever visit London Town, and see
these men asleep on the benches and in the grass, please do not
think they are lazy creatures, preferring sleep to work. Know that
the powers that be have kept them walking all the night long, and
that in the day they have nowhere else to sleep.
CHAPTER XI--THE PEG
But, after carrying the banner all night, I did not sleep in Green
Park when morning dawned. I was wet to the skin, it is true, and I
had had no sleep for twenty-four hours; but, still adventuring as a
penniless man looking for work, I had to look about me, first for a
breakfast, and next for the work.
During the night I had heard of a place over on the Surrey side of
the Thames, where the Salvation Army every Sunday morning gave away
a breakfast to the unwashed. (And, by the way, the men who carry
the banner are unwashed in the morning, and unless it is raining
they do not have much show for a wash, either.) This, thought I, is
the very thing--breakfast in the morning, and then the whole day in
which to look for work.
It was a weary walk. Down St. James Street I dragged my tired legs,
along Pall Mall, past Trafalgar Square, to the Strand. I crossed
the Waterloo Bridge to the Surrey side, cut across to Blackfriars
Road, coming out near the Surrey Theatre, and arrived at the
Salvation Army barracks before seven o'clock. This was "the peg."
And by "the peg," in the argot, is meant the place where a free meal
may be obtained.
Here was a motley crowd of woebegone wretches who had spent the
night in the rain. Such prodigious misery! and so much of it! Old
men, young men, all manner of men, and boys to boot, and all manner
of boys. Some were drowsing standing up; half a score of them were
stretched out on the stone steps in most painful postures, all of
them sound asleep, the skin of their bodies showing red through the
holes, and rents in their rags. And up and down the street and
across the street for a block either way, each doorstep had from two
to three occupants, all asleep, their heads bent forward on their
knees. And, it must be remembered, these are not hard times in
England. Things are going on very much as they ordinarily do, and
times are neither hard nor easy.
And then came the policeman. "Get outa that, you bloomin' swine!
Eigh! eigh! Get out now!" And like swine he drove them from the
doorways and scattered them to the four winds of Surrey. But when
he encountered the crowd asleep on the steps he was astounded.
"Shocking!" he exclaimed. "Shocking! And of a Sunday morning! A
pretty sight! Eigh! eigh! Get outa that, you bleeding nuisances!"
Of course it was a shocking sight, I was shocked myself. And I
should not care to have my own daughter pollute her eyes with such a
sight, or come within half a mile of it; but--and there we were, and
there you are, and "but" is all that can be said.
The policeman passed on, and back we clustered, like flies around a
honey jar. For was there not that wonderful thing, a breakfast,
awaiting us? We could not have clustered more persistently and
desperately had they been giving away million-dollar bank-notes.
Some were already off to sleep, when back came the policeman and
away we scattered only to return again as soon as the coast was
clear.
At half-past seven a little door opened, and a Salvation Army
soldier stuck out his head. "Ayn't no sense blockin' the wy up that
wy," he said. "Those as 'as tickets cawn come hin now, an' those as
'asn't cawn't come hin till nine."
Oh, that breakfast! Nine o'clock! An hour and a half longer! The
men who held tickets were greatly envied. They were permitted to go
inside, have a wash, and sit down and rest until breakfast, while we
waited for the same breakfast on the street. The tickets had been
distributed the previous night on the streets and along the
Embankment, and the possession of them was not a matter of merit,
but of chance.
At eight-thirty, more men with tickets were admitted, and by nine
the little gate was opened to us. We crushed through somehow, and
found ourselves packed in a courtyard like sardines. On more
occasions than one, as a Yankee tramp in Yankeeland, I have had to
work for my breakfast; but for no breakfast did I ever work so hard
as for this one. For over two hours I had waited outside, and for
over another hour I waited in this packed courtyard. I had had
nothing to eat all night, and I was weak and faint, while the smell
of the soiled clothes and unwashed bodies, steaming from pent animal
heat, and blocked solidly about me, nearly turned my stomach. So
tightly were we packed, that a number of the men took advantage of
the opportunity and went soundly asleep standing up.
Now, about the Salvation Army in general I know nothing, and
whatever criticism I shall make here is of that particular portion
of the Salvation Army which does business on Blackfriars Road near
the Surrey Theatre. In the first place, this forcing of men who
have been up all night to stand on their feet for hours longer, is
as cruel as it is needless. We were weak, famished, and exhausted
from our night's hardship and lack of sleep, and yet there we stood,
and stood, and stood, without rhyme or reason.
Sailors were very plentiful in this crowd. It seemed to me that one
man in four was looking for a ship, and I found at least a dozen of
them to be American sailors. In accounting for their being "on the
beach," I received the same story from each and all, and from my
knowledge of sea affairs this story rang true. English ships sign
their sailors for the voyage, which means the round trip, sometimes
lasting as long as three years; and they cannot sign off and receive
their discharges until they reach the home port, which is England.
Their wages are low, their food is bad, and their treatment worse.
Very often they are really forced by their captains to desert in the
New World or the colonies, leaving a handsome sum of wages behind
them--a distinct gain, either to the captain or the owners, or to
both. But whether for this reason alone or not, it is a fact that
large numbers of them desert. Then, for the home voyage, the ship
engages whatever sailors it can find on the beach. These men are
engaged at the somewhat higher wages that obtain in other portions
of the world, under the agreement that they shall sign off on
reaching England. The reason for this is obvious; for it would be
poor business policy to sign them for any longer time, since
seamen's wages are low in England, and England is always crowded
with sailormen on the beach. So this fully accounted for the
American seamen at the Salvation Army barracks. To get off the
beach in other outlandish places they had come to England, and gone
on the beach in the most outlandish place of all.
There were fully a score of Americans in the crowd, the non-sailors
being "tramps royal," the men whose "mate is the wind that tramps
the world." They were all cheerful, facing things with the pluck
which is their chief characteristic and which seems never to desert
them, withal they were cursing the country with lurid metaphors
quite refreshing after a month of unimaginative, monotonous Cockney
swearing. The Cockney has one oath, and one oath only, the most
indecent in the language, which he uses on any and every occasion.
Far different is the luminous and varied Western swearing, which
runs to blasphemy rather than indecency. And after all, since men
will swear, I think I prefer blasphemy to indecency; there is an
audacity about it, an adventurousness and defiance that is better
than sheer filthiness.
There was one American tramp royal whom I found particularly
enjoyable. I first noticed him on the street, asleep in a doorway,
his head on his knees, but a hat on his head that one does not meet
this side of the Western Ocean. When the policeman routed him out,
he got up slowly and deliberately, looked at the policeman, yawned
and stretched himself, looked at the policeman again as much as to
say he didn't know whether he would or wouldn't, and then sauntered
leisurely down the sidewalk. At the outset I was sure of the hat,
but this made me sure of the wearer of the hat.
In the jam inside I found myself alongside of him, and we had quite
a chat. He had been through Spain, Italy, Switzerland, and France,
and had accomplished the practically impossible feat of beating his
way three hundred miles on a French railway without being caught at
the finish. Where was I hanging out? he asked. And how did I
manage for "kipping"?--which means sleeping. Did I know the rounds
yet? He was getting on, though the country was "horstyl" and the
cities were "bum." Fierce, wasn't it? Couldn't "batter" (beg)
anywhere without being "pinched." But he wasn't going to quit it.
Buffalo Bill's Show was coming over soon, and a man who could drive
eight horses was sure of a job any time. These mugs over here
didn't know beans about driving anything more than a span. What was
the matter with me hanging on and waiting for Buffalo Bill? He was
sure I could ring in somehow.
And so, after all, blood is thicker than water. We were fellow-
countrymen and strangers in a strange land. I had warmed to his
battered old hat at sight of it, and he was as solicitous for my
welfare as if we were blood brothers. We swapped all manner of
useful information concerning the country and the ways of its
people, methods by which to obtain food and shelter and what not,
and we parted genuinely sorry at having to say good-bye.
One thing particularly conspicuous in this crowd was the shortness
of stature. I, who am but of medium height, looked over the heads
of nine out of ten. The natives were all short, as were the foreign
sailors. There were only five or six in the crowd who could be
called fairly tall, and they were Scandinavians and Americans. The
tallest man there, however, was an exception. He was an Englishman,
though not a Londoner. "Candidate for the Life Guards," I remarked
to him. "You've hit it, mate," was his reply; "I've served my bit
in that same, and the way things are I'll be back at it before
long."
For an hour we stood quietly in this packed courtyard. Then the men
began to grow restless. There was pushing and shoving forward, and
a mild hubbub of voices. Nothing rough, however, nor violent;
merely the restlessness of weary and hungry men. At this juncture
forth came the adjutant. I did not like him. His eyes were not
good. There was nothing of the lowly Galilean about him, but a
great deal of the centurion who said: "For I am a man in authority,
having soldiers under me; and I say to this man, Go, and he goeth;
and to another, Come, and he cometh; and to my servant, Do this, and
he doeth it."
Well, he looked at us in just that way, and those nearest to him
quailed. Then he lifted his voice.
"Stop this 'ere, now, or I'll turn you the other wy an' march you
out, an' you'll get no breakfast."
I cannot convey by printed speech the insufferable way in which he
said this. He seemed to me to revel in that he was a man in
authority, able to say to half a thousand ragged wretches, "you may
eat or go hungry, as I elect."
To deny us our breakfast after standing for hours! It was an awful
threat, and the pitiful, abject silence which instantly fell
attested its awfulness. And it was a cowardly threat. We could not
strike back, for we were starving; and it is the way of the world
that when one man feeds another he is that man's master. But the
centurion--I mean the adjutant--was not satisfied. In the dead
silence he raised his voice again, and repeated the threat, and
amplified it.
At last we were permitted to enter the feasting hall, where we found
the "ticket men" washed but unfed. All told, there must have been
nearly seven hundred of us who sat down--not to meat or bread, but
to speech, song, and prayer. From all of which I am convinced that
Tantalus suffers in many guises this side of the infernal regions.
The adjutant made the prayer, but I did not take note of it, being
too engrossed with the massed picture of misery before me. But the
speech ran something like this: "You will feast in Paradise. No
matter how you starve and suffer here, you will feast in Paradise,
that is, if you will follow the directions." And so forth and so
forth. A clever bit of propaganda, I took it, but rendered of no
avail for two reasons. First, the men who received it were
unimaginative and materialistic, unaware of the existence of any
Unseen, and too inured to hell on earth to be frightened by hell to
come. And second, weary and exhausted from the night's
sleeplessness and hardship, suffering from the long wait upon their
feet, and faint from hunger, they were yearning, not for salvation,
but for grub. The "soul-snatchers" (as these men call all religious
propagandists), should study the physiological basis of psychology a
little, if they wish to make their efforts more effective.
All in good time, about eleven o'clock, breakfast arrived. It
arrived, not on plates, but in paper parcels. I did not have all I
wanted, and I am sure that no man there had all he wanted, or half
of what he wanted or needed. I gave part of my bread to the tramp
royal who was waiting for Buffalo Bill, and he was as ravenous at
the end as he was in the beginning. This is the breakfast: two
slices of bread, one small piece of bread with raisins in it and
called "cake," a wafer of cheese, and a mug of "water bewitched."
Numbers of the men had been waiting since five o'clock for it, while
all of us had waited at least four hours; and in addition, we had
been herded like swine, packed like sardines, and treated like curs,
and been preached at, and sung to, and prayed for. Nor was that
all.
No sooner was breakfast over (and it was over almost as quickly as
it takes to tell), than the tired heads began to nod and droop, and
in five minutes half of us were sound asleep. There were no signs
of our being dismissed, while there were unmistakable signs of
preparation for a meeting. I looked at a small clock hanging on the
wall. It indicated twenty-five minutes to twelve. Heigh-ho,
thought I, time is flying, and I have yet to look for work.
"I want to go," I said to a couple of waking men near me.
"Got ter sty fer the service," was the answer.
"Do you want to stay?" I asked.
They shook their heads.
"Then let us go and tell them we want to get out," I continued.
"Come on."
But the poor creatures were aghast. So I left them to their fate,
and went up to the nearest Salvation Army man.
"I want to go," I said. "I came here for breakfast in order that I
might be in shape to look for work. I didn't think it would take so
long to get breakfast. I think I have a chance for work in Stepney,
and the sooner I start, the better chance I'll have of getting it."
He was really a good fellow, though he was startled by my request.
"Wy," he said, "we're goin' to 'old services, and you'd better sty."
"But that will spoil my chances for work," I urged. "And work is
the most important thing for me just now."
As he was only a private, he referred me to the adjutant, and to the
adjutant I repeated my reasons for wishing to go, and politely
requested that he let me go.
"But it cawn't be done," he said, waxing virtuously indignant at
such ingratitude. "The idea!" he snorted. "The idea!"
"Do you mean to say that I can't get out of here?" I demanded.
"That you will keep me here against my will?"
"Yes," he snorted.
I do not know what might have happened, for I was waxing indignant
myself; but the "congregation" had "piped" the situation, and he
drew me over to a corner of the room, and then into another room.
Here he again demanded my reasons for wishing to go.
"I want to go," I said, "because I wish to look for work over in
Stepney, and every hour lessens my chance of finding work. It is
now twenty-five minutes to twelve. I did not think when I came in
that it would take so long to get a breakfast."
"You 'ave business, eh?" he sneered. "A man of business you are,
eh? Then wot did you come 'ere for?"
"I was out all night, and I needed a breakfast in order to
strengthen me to find work. That is why I came here."
"A nice thing to do," he went on in the same sneering manner. "A
man with business shouldn't come 'ere. You've tyken some poor man's
breakfast 'ere this morning, that's wot you've done."
Which was a lie, for every mother's son of us had come in.
Now I submit, was this Christian-like, or even honest?--after I had
plainly stated that I was homeless and hungry, and that I wished to
look for work, for him to call my looking for work "business," to
call me therefore a business man, and to draw the corollary that a
man of business, and well off, did not require a charity breakfast,
and that by taking a charity breakfast I had robbed some hungry waif
who was not a man of business.
I kept my temper, but I went over the facts again, and clearly and
concisely demonstrated to him how unjust he was and how he had
perverted the facts. As I manifested no signs of backing down (and
I am sure my eyes were beginning to snap), he led me to the rear of
the building where, in an open court, stood a tent. In the same
sneering tone he informed a couple of privates standing there that
"'ere is a fellow that 'as business an' 'e wants to go before
services."
They were duly shocked, of course, and they looked unutterable
horror while he went into the tent and brought out the major. Still
in the same sneering manner, laying particular stress on the
"business," he brought my case before the commanding officer. The
major was of a different stamp of man. I liked him as soon as I saw
him, and to him I stated my case in the same fashion m before.
"Didn't you know you had to stay for services?" he asked.
"Certainly not," I answered, "or I should have gone without my
breakfast. You have no placards posted to that effect, nor was I so
informed when I entered the place."
He meditated a moment. "You can go," he said.
It was twelve o'clock when I gained the street, and I couldn't quite
make up my mind whether I had been in the army or in prison. The
day was half gone, and it was a far fetch to Stepney. And besides,
it was Sunday, and why should even a starving man look for work on
Sunday? Furthermore, it was my judgment that I had done a hard
night's work walking the streets, and a hard day's work getting my
breakfast; so I disconnected myself from my working hypothesis of a
starving young man in search of employment, hailed a bus, and
climbed aboard.
After a shave and a bath, with my clothes all off, I got in between
clean white sheets and went to sleep. It was six in the evening
when I closed my eyes. When they opened again, the clocks were
striking nine next morning. I had slept fifteen straight hours.
And as I lay there drowsily, my mind went back to the seven hundred
unfortunates I had left waiting for services. No bath, no shave for
them, no clean white sheets and all clothes off, and fifteen hours'
straight sleep. Services over, it was the weary streets again, the
problem of a crust of bread ere night, and the long sleepless night
in the streets, and the pondering of the problem of how to obtain a
crust at dawn.
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