Glimpses into the Abyss Part 24

FOOTNOTES:

[161] See Appendix I. Great care will be necessary to ensure admission to _all really dest.i.tute_.

[162] See Appendix VII.

APPENDIX V.

EVILS OF SHORT SENTENCES.

These evils may be summarised as follows:--

(1) Uneven administration of justice, as sentences frequently vary from three to twenty-eight days for the same offences, _i.e._, refusing to perform workhouse task or destroying clothing. The sentence of a stipendiary often differs from that of a local magistrate in the same town.

The great majority of sentences (13,831 out of 16,626 for begging, and 5,198 out of 6,219 for sleeping out) are for less than fourteen and probably for only seven days.

(2) Such short sentences are not deterrent, and are very costly. Two vagrants cost in travelling expenses alone 12 and 16 10_s_. Hardly any work can be exacted during a short sentence.

The committee recommend that a minimum sentence of one day should be _recorded as a conviction_ for vagrancy. If again convicted the prisoner could be then committed to a labour colony.

APPENDIX VI.

PREFACE, BY CANON HICKS, OF SALFORD, TO "FIVE DAYS AND NIGHTS IN A TRAMP WARD."

The narrative may be relied upon as true in every detail. The facts were burned in upon the minds of the two pilgrims, and were put on paper at once.

Certain names are omitted for obvious reasons; they are known and can be verified.

The lady whose courage and devotion first suggested this descent into the Inferno, who took the lead in it and then recorded its results, was inclined, when it came to printing them, to suppress certain revolting particulars. At my express desire they were retained. They are essential to her case. For, of course, the facts here revealed are a terrible indictment of our present arrangements, and cry aloud for reform. In the interests of morality alone, our Workhouse Tramp-wards and Munic.i.p.al Lodging-houses need far more careful supervision. It will be found also that efficiency, common-sense, and kindliness would tend to economy and prevent waste. As to the Common Lodging-house, it is a focus of moral and physical mischief.

It is hoped that this pamphlet will stimulate local authorities; will awaken the ratepayers to a livelier interest in the appointment of Poor Law Guardians, and will quicken the conscience of many more women to offer themselves for election.

EDWARD LEE HICKS.

_Manchester, January, 1904._

_N.B.--This Pamphlet was published by the Women Guardians and Local Government a.s.sociation, 66, Barton Arcade, Manchester, and may still be had from them, price 1d._

_Chapter III., "The Tramp Ward" price 2d., Chapter IV., "A Night in a Salvation Army Shelter," price 1d., Chapter V., "Three Nights in Women's Lodging-houses," price 1d., may be obtained in pamphlet form from the Author, post free._

APPENDIX VII.

IMMORALITY AS CAUSED BY DESt.i.tUTION AMONG WOMEN.

The causes of immorality among women are deep-seated in modern life.

They are due to--(1) widespread changes in s.e.x relations.h.i.+p, combined with (2) changes in modes of life due to the industrial revolution, and complicated by (3) psychic developments in humanity itself.

(1) Suppose we take the largest and most universal change first. In modern civilisation the psychic relations.h.i.+ps of man and woman are changing. Intensity has come into s.e.x relations.h.i.+ps. It is reckoned right, or at least pardonable, for men and women to do "for love" what may be against the dictates of common sense. To a large extent this is ephemeral, and belongs to the erotic age alone. But necessarily the effect on the young of both s.e.xes of the "novel" with its coloured picture of life, must be great, and greatest on the most emotional s.e.x.

Fict.i.tious views of life influence minds just endeavouring to grasp life as a whole. A woman may be placed in circ.u.mstances of dest.i.tution in pursuit of the _ideal_ life. It matters little to evolution that thousands of lives perish. The evolution of woman involves, like all other evolutions, _sacrifice_.

(2) Let us now look at the second large factor--what is called the Industrial Revolution. It has been pointed out by Mrs. Stetson, that hitherto man has been the economic environment of woman. We are still in a transition period, but largely in the middle and working cla.s.ses, women before marriage, and even after, are escaping to economic independence. This change is so vast and far-reaching (involving an adjustment of all our social inst.i.tutions) that we can hardly yet appreciate it. Once begun, it must go forward. But at present, as half begun, it means in all directions the danger and sacrifice of individual lives. Over against the problem of unemployed men, we now have unemployed women also--women not dependent, but on their own economic footing.

(3) Changes in s.e.x relations.h.i.+p rapidly follow on changes in economic status. The attainment of economic status as distinct from economic value is imperceptibly modifying marriage and the family. Woman and man are partners. While the child becomes more and more the centre on which public interest focusses, at the same time the ties both of wifehood and of parentage and of brotherhood and sisterhood are relaxed. Community interest and life replaces by degrees parental restraint and responsibility. Freedom has its blessings and also its penalties.

Let us trace a woman through her normal life and see what dangers of dest.i.tution beset her.

As at first born, the home is her support and natural habitat. But economic independence being possible at an early age, parental restraint is lighter. I have known cases of girls even of fourteen and sixteen leaving home, and with a companion or two, clubbing together and setting up house. They were then free to invite young men, with what consequences may be imagined. A girl in "lodgings" or "with friends" may easily become dest.i.tute through changes in employment.

In addition to these wandering children, parents often cast off girls on very slight grounds. To turn a child into the street, if the girl is out of work or supposed to be idle or disorderly, is by no means uncommon.

It is so common that some provision for it should be made in every town.

Short of actually leaving home, our girls are now exposed to the temptations of the free life of the street, of largely unrestricted intercourse, often under wrong conditions, with the other s.e.x. This intercourse, however, cannot under modern circ.u.mstances, be prevented except by exceptional parents. It should be under healthy conditions and wise control. But at present it is a large factor in dest.i.tution, for the lad and la.s.s spend their earnings largely on s.e.x attraction and are penniless in emergencies sure to occur. Hasty and ill-considered marriage may follow. A national education for motherhood is much to be desired; it is perilous and unwise to keep up the old conventional ideas as to "innocence" and "purity" being fostered by ignorance. Let us face the question boldly, and encourage the teaching of right and pure and true views of marriage. Forewarned is often forearmed. At any rate, at this period in life, orphanhood, or some change in family relations, stepfatherhood or motherhood being frequent, may throw the girl much on her lover. There is no reserve of maidenly provision as in many countries. The legislation of betrothal might even be a good thing, and the State might require at least a little forethought. More and more the State becomes the universal child-parent. It is time it studied its responsibilities.

Before our typical woman lie two paths. Into the usual one of marriage the vast majority of industrial women are carried. The marriage state still involves support, but also involves a change in economic relations.h.i.+p which more and more galls. Curious partners.h.i.+ps result where both are self-supporting, one or the other being predominant partner. In middle-cla.s.s life still, conventions largely rule; but in industrial centres the marriage bond itself is much less binding than of old. Separations become more and more common. The amount of support that can be claimed by a wife is so insufficient that often they come together again perhaps only to part. Both are often young. Before the man lies a long celibate life, he is under no vow--self-restraint is normally not attained. The large numbers of imperfectly-mated men leading a life divorced from home ties const.i.tute a grave social peril.

In every town a great number of middle-cla.s.s and many working men live free from social responsibility to support women, yet do partially support some at any rate, either as lovers, as betrothed sweethearts, or in less sacred relations.h.i.+ps. Dest.i.tute and deserted wives are common, cast-off sweethearts not a few; women derelicts abound; they are the "unemployed," alas not unemployed in sin, but a source of moral contagion in their easy life.

For the other career of womanhood is hard, and as yet a path not for the many, and therefore all the harder. A woman may attain economic independence; but she is sadly handicapped. Her wage is low, often lowered by dress expense; and her woman nature, especially under modern pressure of sentimental literature, demands satisfaction in husband and child. What wonder if she gives up the hard struggle and strays from this path. Society owes much to the women who toil on, cutting by degrees the stairs of progress. If they succeed in self-support, how often age overtakes them as toilers; women's physical disabilities (created or complicated by a false civilisation) leave them stranded.

The middle-aged unemployed female is a most serious national problem at present. It calls loudly for universal sisterhood. Drink too often claims the unloved and unlovable spinster. She can no longer spin; she must work under conditions in which she ages fast. Independence is hardly to be won. Our workhouses are full of derelict womanhood. Nor is the married woman always more fortunate. Industries often kill husbands when still young. Widows abound. It is extremely difficult to make a woman self-supporting with more than one, or at most with two children, in such a way as to secure sufficient food and clothes for these children. Into married dest.i.tution, if the husband lives, I need not enter; it is part of the unemployed problem, and a serious one.

How can we face these problems? They are on every hand. We have no effective State provision. The Tramp Ward is a mockery, a robbery and insult to womanhood. The common lodging-house is a snare and a trap.

Surely _it belongs to womanhood to befriend womanhood_. It is little use to multiply Rescue Homes while we leave untouched the causes that are stranding more and more of our sisters.

What is needed is--in every town an industry for dest.i.tute women; in every town a Shelter to pick up strays and guide them to self-support; in every town Women's Hostels under kind, wise, but not restrictive supervision; in every town provision for glad, free girl life, and joined to this distinct, clear, national purity teaching. What is needed is a pure, free, enlightened womanhood, ready to stand side by side with man to mother the world.

MARY HIGGS.

[_Read at Conference of Reformatory and Refuge Union and National a.s.sociation of Certified Reformatory and Industrial Schools, Birmingham, June 21st, 1905._]

APPENDIX VIII.

COMMON LODGING-HOUSES VERSUS SHELTERS.

The laws of evolution apply to social phenomena. Tested by these we see that _the Shelter_, the _Munic.i.p.al Lodging-house_, and the _Rowton House_ are replacing the _common lodging-house_. Is there any reason why they should not, when for the rich the hotel has replaced the inn? It is a question of national moment what provision should be made for the floating population of men and _women_.

In smaller towns the common lodging-house is _disappearing_ (see Minutes of Evidence before Vagrancy Committee, section 1752). In London the accommodation is _decreasing_ (see _ibid._, section 5784). Is this to be deplored or hastened? The poor must sleep _somewhere_. Let us first of all distinguish between the _Free_ Charitable Shelter and _Free_ Meals, and the question of provision of adequate housing accommodation for our floating population.