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Romton, t'ank God-leastways, dey didn't de last time I
was here. I been up to York and round Wales since."
"What is skilly?" I said.
"Skilly? A can o' hot water wid some bloody oatmeal
at de bottom; dat's skilly. De skilly spikes is always de
worst."
We stayed talking for an hour or two. The Irishman was a
friendly old man, but he smelt very unpleasant, which was
not surprising when one learned how many diseases he
suffered from. It appeared (he described his symptoms
fully) that taking him from top to bottom he had the
following things wrong with him: on his crown, which
was bald, he had eczema; he was shortsighted, and had no
glasses; he had chronic bronchitis; he had some
undiagnosed pain in the back; he had dyspepsia; he had
urethritis; he had varicose veins, bunions and flat feet.
With this assemblage of diseases he had tramped the
roads for fifteen years.
At about five the Irishmen said, "Could you do wid e
cup o' tay? De spike don't open till six."
"I should think I could."
"Well, dere's a place here where dey gives you a free
cup o' tay and a bun.
Good tay it is. Dey makes you say
a lot o' bloody prayers after; but hell! It all passes de
time away. You come wid me."
He led the way to a small tin-roofed shed in a side-
street, rather like a village cricket pavilion. About
twenty-five other tramps were waiting. A few of them
were dirty old habitual vagabonds, the majority decent-
looking lads from the north, probably miners or cotton
operatives out of work. Presently the door opened and a
lady in a blue silk dress, wearing gold spectacles end a
crucifix, welcomed us in. Inside were thirty or forty hard
chairs, a harmonium, and a very gory lithograph of the
Crucifixion.
Uncomfortably we took off our caps end sat down. The
lady handed out the tea, and while we ate and drank she
moved to and fro, talking benignly. She talked upon
religious subjects-about Jesus Christ always having e
soft spot for poor rough men like us, and about how
quickly the time passed when you were in church, and
what a difference it made to a man on the road if he said
his prayers regularly. We hated it. We sat against the
well fingering our caps (a tramp feels indecently exposed
with his cap off), and turning pink and trying to mumble
something when the lady addressed us. There was no
doubt that she meant it all kindly. As she came up to one
of the north country lads with the plate of buns, she said
to him:
"And you, my boy, how long is it since you knelt down
and spoke with your Father in Heaven?"
Poor lad, not a word could he utter; but his belly
answered for him, with a disgraceful rumbling which
it set up at sight of the food. Thereafter he was so
overcome with shame that he could scarcely swallow his
bun. Only one men managed to answer the lady in her
own style, end he was a spry, red-nosed fellow looking
like a corporal who had lost his stripe for drunkenness.
He could pronounce the words "the dear Lord Jesus"
with less shame then anyone I ever saw. No doubt he had
learned the knack in prison.
Tea ended, and I saw the tramps looking furtively at
one another. An unspoken thought was running from
man to man-could we possibly make off before the
prayers started? Someone stirred in his chair-not getting
up actually, but with just a glance at the door, as though
half suggesting the idea of departure. The lady quelled
him with one look. She said in a more benign tone than
ever:
"I don't think you need go
quite yet. The casual ward
doesn't open till six, and we have time to kneel down and
say a few words to our Father first. I think we should all
feel better after that, shouldn't we?"
The red-nosed man was very helpful, pulling the
harmonium into place and handing out the prayerbooks.
His back was to the lady as he did this, and it was his
idea of a joke to deal the books like a pack of cards,
whispering to each men as he did so, "There y'are, mate,
there's a--- nap 'end for yer! Four aces and a king!" etc.
Bareheaded, we knelt down among the dirty teacups
and began to mumble that we had left undone those
things that we ought to have done, and done those things
that we ought not to have done, and there was no health
in us. The lady prayed very fervently, but her eyes roved
over us all the time, making sure that we were attending.
When she was not looking we grinned and winked at one
another, and whispered bawdy jokes, just to show that we did
not care; but it stuck in our throats a little. No one except
the rednosed man was self-possessed enough to speak the
responses above a whisper. We got on better with the singing,
except that one old tramp knew no tune but "Onward,
Christian soldiers," and reverted to it sometimes,
spoiling the harmony.
The prayers lasted half an hour, and then, after a
handshake at the door, we made off. "Well," said
somebody as soon as we were out of hearing, "the
trouble's over. I thought them ----prayers was never goin'
to end."
"You 'ad your bun," said another; "you got to pay for
it."
"Pray for it, you mean. Ah, you don't get much for
nothing. They can't even give you a twopenny cup of tea
without you go down on you -----knees for it."
There were murmurs of agreement. Evidently the
tramps were not grateful for their tea. And yet it was
excellent tea, as different from coffee-shop tea as good
Bordeaux is from the muck called colonial claret, and we
were all glad of it. I am sure too that it was given in a
good spirit, without any intention of humiliating us; so in
fairness we ought to have been grateful-still, we were
not.
XXVII
AT about a quarter to six the Irishman led me to the spike.
It was a grim, smoky yellow cube of brick, standing in a
corner of the workhouse grounds. With its rows of tiny,
barred windows, and a high wall and iron gates separating
it from the road, it looked much like a prison. Already a
long queue of ragged men had
formed up, waiting for the gates to open. They were of
all kinds and ages, the youngest a fresh-faced boy of
sixteen, the oldest a doubled-up, toothless mummy of
seventy-five. Some were hardened tramps, recognisable
by their sticks and billies and dust-darkened faces; some
were factory hands out of work, some agricultural
labourers, one a clerk in collar and tie, two certainly
imbeciles. Seen in the mass, lounging there, they were a
disgusting sight; nothing villainous or dangerous, but a
graceless, mangy crew, nearly all ragged and palpably
underfed. They were friendly, however, and asked no
questions. Many offered me tobacco-cigarette ends,
that is.
We leaned against the wall, smoking, and the tramps
began to talk about the spikes they had been in recently.
It appeared from what they said that all spikes are
different, each with its peculiar merits and demerits, and
it is important to know these when you are on the road.
An old hand will tell you the peculiarities of every spike
in England, as: at A you are allowed to smoke but there
are bugs in the cells; at B the beds are comfortable but
the porter is a bully; at C they let you out early in the
morning but the tea is undrinkable; at D the officials
steal your money if you have any-and so on
interminably. There are regular beaten tracks where the
spikes are within a day's march of one another. I was
told that the Barnet-St. Albans route is the best, and they
warned me to steer clear of Billericay and Chelmsford,
also Ide Hill in Kent. Chelsea was said to be the most
luxurious spike in England; someone, praising it, said
that the blankets there were more like prison than the
spike. Tramps go far afield in summer, and in winter,
they circle as much as possible round the large towns,
where it is warmer and there is more charity. But they
have to keep moving, for you may not enter any one spike,
or any two London spikes, more than once in a month, on pain
of being confined for a week.
Some time after six the gates opened and we began to
file in one at a time. In the yard was an office where an
official entered in a ledger our names and trades and ages,
also the places we were coming from and going to-this last
is intended to keep a check on the movements of tramps. I
gave my trade as "painter"; I had painted water-colours-
who has not? The official also asked us whether we had
any money, and every man said no. It is against the law to
enter the spike with more than eightpence, and any sum
less than this one is supposed to hand over at the gate. But
as a rule the tramps prefer to smuggle their money in,
tying it tight in a piece of cloth so that it will not chink.
Generally they put it in the bag of tea and sugar that every
tramp carries, or among their "papers." The "papers" are
considered sacred and are never searched.
After registering at the office we were led into the
spike by an official known as the Tramp Major (his job is
to supervise casuals, and he is generally a workhouse
pauper) and a great bawling ruffian of a porter in a blue
uniform, who treated us like cattle. The spike consisted
simply of a bathroom and lavatory, and, for the rest, long
double rows of stone cells, perhaps a hundred cells in all.
It was a bare, gloomy place of stone and whitewash,
unwillingly clean, with a smell which, somehow, I had
foreseen from its appearance; a smell of soft soap, Jeyes'
fluid and latrines-a cold, discouraging, prisonish smell.
The porter herded us all into the passage, and then told
us to come into the bathroom six at a time, to be searched
before bathing. The search was for money and tobacco,
Romton being one of those spikes where you
can smoke once you have smuggled your tobacco in, but it
will be confiscated if it is found on you. The old hands
had told us that the porter never searched below the knee,
so before going in we had all hidden our tobacco in the
ankles of our boots. Afterwards, while undressing, we
slipped it into our coats, which we were allowed to keep,
to serve as pillows.
The scene in the bathroom was extraordinarily re-
pulsive. Fifty dirty, stark-naked men elbowing each other
in a room twenty feet square, with only two bathtubs and
two slimy roller towels between them all. I shall never
forget the reek of dirty feet. Less than half the tramps
actually bathed (I heard them saying that hot water is
"weakening" to the system), but they all washed their
faces and feet, and the horrid greasy little clouts known as
toe-rags which they bind round their toes. Fresh water was
only allowed for men who were having a complete bath,
so many men had to bathe in water where others had
washed their feet. The porter shoved us to and fro, giving
the rough side of his tongue when anyone wasted time.
When my turn came for the bath, I asked if I might swill
out the tub, which was streaked with dirt, before using it.
He answered simply, "Shut yer mouth and get on with yer
bath!" That set the social tone of the place, and I did not
speak again.
When we had finished bathing, the porter tied our
clothes in bundles and gave us workhouse shirts-grey
cotton things of doubtful cleanliness, like abbreviated
nightgowns. We were sent along to the cells at once, and
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