I propose in this last chapter to make some suggestions, which, I venture to hope, will be found worthy of consideration and adoption.

The causes of so much misery, suffering and poverty in a rich and self-governing country are numerous; and every cause needs a separate consideration and remedy.

There is no royal road by which the underworld people can ascend to the upperworld; there can be no specific for healing all the sores from which humanity suffers.

Our complex civilisation, our industrial methods, our strange social system, combined with the varied characteristics mental and physical of individuals, make social salvation for the mass difficult and quite impossible for many.

I shall have written with very little effect if I have not shown what some of these individual characteristics are. They are strange, powerful and extraordinary. So very mixed, even in one individual, that while sometimes they inspire hope, at others they provoke despair.

If we couple the difficulties of individual character with the social, industrial and economic difficulties, we see at once how great the problem is.

We must admit, and we ought frankly to admit the truth, and to face it, that there exists a very large army of people that cannot be socially saved. What is more important, they do not want to be saved, and will not be saved if they can avoid it. Their great desire is to be left alone, to be allowed to live where and how they like.

For these people there must be, there will be, and at no far distant date, detention, segregation and classification. We must let them quietly die out, for it is not only folly, but suicidal folly to allow them to continue and to perpetuate.

But we are often told that “Heaven helps those who help themselves”; in fact, we have been told it so often that we have come to believe it, and, what is worse, we religiously or irreligiously act upon it when dealing with those below the line.

If any serious attempt is ever made to lessen the number of the homeless and destitute, if that attempt is to have any chance of success, it will, I am sure, be necessary to make an alteration in the adage and a reversal of our present methods.

If the adage ran, “Heaven helps those who cannot help themselves,” and if we all placed ourselves on the side of Heaven, the present abominable and distressing state of affairs would not endure for a month.

Now I charge it upon the State and local authorities that they avoid their responsibilities to those who most sorely need their help, and who, too, have the greatest claim upon their pity and protecting care. Sometimes those claims are dimly recognised, and half-hearted efforts are made to care for the unfortunate for a short space of time, and to protect them for a limited period.

But these attempts only serve to show the futility of the efforts, for the unfortunates are released from protective care at the very time when care and protection should become more effectual and permanent.

It is comforting to know that we have in London special schools for afflicted or defective children. Day by day hundreds of children are taken to these schools, where genuine efforts are made to instruct them and to develop their limited powers. But eight hundred children leave these schools every year; in five years four thousand afflicted children leave these schools. Leave the schools to live in the underworld of London, and leave, too, just at the age when protection is urgently needed. For adolescence brings new passions that need either control or prohibition.

I want my reader’s imagination to dwell for a moment on these four thousand defectives that leave our special schools every five years; I want them to ask themselves what becomes of these children, and to remember that what holds good with London’s special schools, holds good with regard to all other special schools our country over.

These young people grow into manhood and womanhood without the possibility of growing in wisdom or skill. Few, very few of them, have the slightest chance of becoming self-reliant or self-supporting; ultimately they form a not inconsiderable proportion of the hopeless.

Philanthropic societies receive some of them, workhouses receive others, but these institutions have not, nor do they wish to have, any power of permanent detention, the cost would be too great. Sooner or later the greater part of them become a costly burden upon the community, and an eyesore to humanity. Many of them live nomadic lives, and make occasional use of workhouses and similar institutions when the weather is bad, after which they return to their uncontrolled existence. Feeble-minded and defective women return again and again to the maternity wards to deposit other burdens upon the ratepayers and to add to the number of their kind.

But the nation has begun to realise this costly absurdity of leaving this army of irresponsibles in possession of uncontrolled liberty. The Royal Commission on the Care and Control of the Feeble-minded, after sitting for four years, has made its report. This report is a terrible document and an awful indictment of our neglect.

The commissioners tell us that on January 1st, 1906, there were in England and Wales 149,628 idiots, imbéciles, and feeble-minded; in addition there were on the same date 121,079 persons suffering from some kind of insanity or dementia. So that the total number of those who came within the scope of the inquiry was no less than 271,607, or 1 in every 120 of the whole population.

Of the persons suffering from mental defect, i.e. feeble-minded, imbéciles, etc., one-third were supported entirely at the public cost in workhouses, asylums, prisons, etc.

The report does not tell us much about the remaining two-thirds; but those of us who have experience know only too well what becomes of them, and are painfully acquainted with the hopelessness of their lives.

Here, then, is my first suggestion a national plan for the permanent detention, segregation and control of all persons who are indisputably feeble-minded. Surely this must be the duty of the State, for it is impossible that philanthropic societies can deal permanently with them.

We must catch them young; we must make them happy, for they have capabilities for childlike happiness, and we must make their lives as useful as possible. But we must no longer allow them the curse of uncontrolled liberty.

Again, no boy should be discharged from reformatory or industrial schools as “unfit for training” unless passed on to some institution suitable to his age and condition. If we have no such institutions, as of course we have not, then the State must provide them. And the magistrates must have the power to commit boys and girls who are charged before them to suitable industrial schools or reformatories as freely, as certainly, as unquestioned, and as definitely as they now commit them to prison.

At present magistrates have not this power, for though, as a matter of course, these institutions receive numbers of boys and girls from police-courts, the institutions have the power to Refuse, to grant “licences” or to “discharge.” So it happens that the meshes of the net are large enough to allow those that ought to be detained to go free.

No one can possibly doubt that a provision of this character would largely diminish the number of those that become homeless vagrants.

But I proceed to my second suggestion the detention and segregation of all professional tramps. If it is intolerable that an army of poor afflicted human beings should live homeless and nomadic lives, it is still more intolerable that an army of men and women who are not deficient in intelligence, and who are possessed of fairly healthy bodies should, in these days, be allowed to live as our professional tramps live.

I have already spoken of the fascination attached to a life of irresponsible liberty. The wind on the heath, the field and meadow glistening with dew or sparkling with flowers, the singing of the bird, the joy of life, and no rent day coming round, who would not be a tramp! Perhaps our professional tramps think nothing of these things, for to eat, to sleep, to be free of work, to be uncontrolled, to have no anxieties, save the gratification of animal demands and animal passions, is the perfection of life for thousands of our fellow men and women.

Is this kind of life to be permitted? Every sensible person will surely say that it ought not to be permitted. Yet the number of people who attach themselves to this life continually increases, for year by year the prison commissioners tell us that the number of persons imprisoned for vagrancy, sleeping out, indecency, etc., continues to increase, and that short terms of imprisonment only serve as periods of recuperation for them, for in prison they are healed of their sores and cleansed from their vermin.

With every decent fellow who tramps in search of work we must have the greatest sympathy, but for professional tramps we must provide very simply. Most of these men, women and children find their way into prison, workhouses and casual wards at some time or other. When the man gets into prison, the woman and children go into the nearest workhouse. When the man is released from prison he finds the woman and children waiting for him, and away they go refreshed and cleansed by prison and workhouse treatment.

We must stop for ever this costly and disastrous course of life. How? By establishing in every county and under county authorities, or, if necessary, by a combination of counties, special colonies for vagrants, one for males and another for females. Every vagrant who could not give proof that he had some definite object in tramping must be committed to these colonies and detained, till such time as definite occupation or home be found for him.

Here they should live and work, practically earning their food and clothing; their lives should be made clean and decent, and certainly economical. For these colonies there must be of course State aid.

The children must be adopted by the board of guardians or education authorities and trained in small homes outside the workhouse gates this should be compulsory.

These two plans would certainly clear away the worst and most hopeless tribes of nomads, and though for a short time they would impose considerable pecuniary obligations upon us, yet we should profit even financially in the near future, and, best of all, should prevent a second generation arising to fill the place of those detained.

The same methods should be adopted with the wretched mass of humanity that crowds nightly on the Thames Embankment. Philanthropy is worse than useless with the great majority of these people. Hot soup in the small hours of a cold morning is doubtless comforting to them, and if the night is wet, foggy, etc., a cover for a few hours is doubtless a luxury. They drink the soup, they take advantage of the cover, and go away, to return at night for more soup and still another cover. Oh, the folly of it all!

We must have shelters for them, but the County Council must provide them. Large, clean and healthy places into which, night by night, the human derelicts from the streets should be taken by special police.

But there should be no release with the morning light, but detention while full inquiries are made regarding them. Friends would doubtless come forward to help many, but the remainder should be classified according to age and physical and mental condition, and released only when some satisfactory place or occupation is forthcoming for them.

The nightly condition of the Embankment is not only disgraceful, but it is dangerous to the health and wellbeing of the community.

It is almost inconceivable that we should allow those parts of London which are specially adapted for the convenience of the public to be monopolised by a mass of diseased and unclean humanity. If we would but act sensibly with these classes, I am sure we could then deal in an effectual manner with that portion of the nomads for whom there is hope.

If the vast amount of money that is poured out in the vain effort to help those whom it is impossible to help was devoted to those that are helpable, the difficulty would be solved.

So I would suggest, and it is no new suggestion, that all philanthropic societies that deal with the submerged should unite and co-ordinate with the authorities. That private individuals who have money, time or ability at their command should unite with them. That one great all-embracing organisation, empowered and aided by the State, should be formed, to which the man, woman or family that is overtaken or overwhelmed by misfortune could turn in time of their need with the assurance that their needs would be sympathetically considered and their requirements wisely attended to.

An organisation of this description would prevent tens of thousands from becoming vagrants, and a world of misery and unspeakable squalor would be prevented.

The recent Report on the Poor Law foreshadows an effort of this description, and in Germany this method is tried with undoubted success.

Some day we shall try it, but that day will not come till we have realised how futile, how expensive our present methods are. The Poor Law system needs recasting. Charity must be divorced from religion. Philanthropic and semi-religious organisations must be separated from their commercial instincts and commercial greed. The workhouse, the prison, the Church Army and the Salvation Army’s shelters and labour homes must no longer form the circle round which so many hopelessly wander.

No man or set of men must be considered the saviour of the poor, and though much knowledge will be required, it perhaps will be well not to have too much.

Above all, the desire to prevent, rather than the desire to restore, must be the aim of the organisation which should embrace every parish in our land.

Finally, and in a few words, my methods would be detention and protective care for the afflicted or defective, detention and segregation for the tramps, and a great charitable State-aided organisation to deal with the unfortunate.

Tramps we shall continue to have, but there need be nothing degrading about them, if only the professional element can be eliminated.

Labour exchanges are doing a splendid work for the genuine working man whose labour must often be migratory. But every labour exchange should have its clean lodging-house, in which the decent fellows who want work, and are fitted for work, may stay for a night, and thus avoid the contamination attending the common lodging-houses or the degradation and detention attending casual wards.

There exists, I am sure, great possibilities for good in labour exchanges, if, and if only, their services can be devoted to the genuinely unemployed.

Already I have said they are doing much, and one of the most useful things they do is the advancement of rail-fares to men when work is obtained at a distance. A development in this direction will do much to end the disasters that attend decent fellows when they go on tramp. Migratory labour is unfortunately an absolute necessity, for our industrial and commercial life demand it, and almost depend upon it. The men who supply that want are quite as useful citizens as the men who have permanent and settled work. But their lives are subject to many dangers, temptations, and privations from which they ought to be delivered.

The more I reflect upon the present methods for dealing with professional tramps, the more I am persuaded that these methods are foolish and extravagant. But the more I reflect on the life of the genuinely unemployed that earnestly desire work and are compelled to tramp in search of it, the more I am persuaded that such life is attended by many dangers. The probability being that if the tramp and search be often repeated or long-continued, the desire for, and the ability to undergo, regular work will disappear.

But physical and mental inferiority, together with the absence of moral purpose, have a great deal to say with regard to the number of our unemployed.

If you ask me the source of this stunted manhood, I point you to the narrow streets of the underworld. Thence they issue, and thence alone.

Do you ask the cause? The causes are many! First and foremost stands that all-pervading cause the housing of the poor. Who can enumerate the thousands that have breathed the fetid air of the miserable dwelling-places in our slums? Who dare picture how they live and sleep, as they lie, unripe sex with sex, for mutual taint? I dare not, and if I did no publisher could print it.

Who dare describe the life of a mother-wife, whose husband and children have become dependent upon her earnings! I dare not! Who dare describe the exact life and doings of four families living in a little house intended for one family? Who can describe the life, speech, actions and atmosphere of such places? I cannot, for the task would be too disgusting!

For tens of thousands of people are allowed, or compelled, to live and die under those conditions. How can vigorous manhood or pure womanhood come out of them? Ought we to expect, have we any right to expect, manhood and womanhood born and bred under such conditions to be other than blighted?

Whether we expect it or not matters but little, for we have this mass of blighted humanity with us, and, like an old man of the sea, it is a burden upon our back, a burden that is not easily got rid of.

What are we doing with this burden in the present? How are we going to prevent it in the future? are two serious questions that must be answered, and quickly, too, or something worse will happen to us.

The authorities must see to it at once that children shall have as much air and breathing space in their homes by night as they have in the schools by day.

What sense can there be in demanding and compelling a certain amount of air space in places where children are detained for five and a half hours, and then allow those children to stew in apologies for rooms, where the atmosphere is vile beyond description, and where they are crowded indiscriminately for the remaining hours?

This is the question of the day and the hour. Drink, foreign invasion, the House of Lords or the House of Commons, Tariff Reform or Free Trade, none of these questions, no, nor the whole lot of them combined, compare for one moment in importance with this one awful question.

Give the poor good airy housing at a reasonable rent, and half the difficulties against which our nation runs its thick head would disappear. Hospitals and prisons would disappear too as if by magic, for it is to these places that the smitten manhood finds its way.

I know it is a big question! But it is a question that has got to be solved, and in solving it some of our famous and cherished notions will have to go. Every house, no matter to whom it belongs, or who holds the lease, who lets or sub-lets, every inhabited house must be licensed by the local authorities for a certain number of inmates, so many and no more; a maximum, but no minimum.

Local authorities even now have great powers concerning construction, drains, etc. Let them now be empowered to make stringent rules about habitations other than their municipal houses. The piggeries misnamed lodging-houses, the common shelters, etc., are inspected and licensed for a certain number of inmates; it is high time that this was done with the wretched houses in which the poor live.

Oh, the irony of it! Idle tramps must not be crowded, but the children of the poor may be crowded to suffocation. This must surely stop; if not, it will stop us! Again I say, that local authorities must have the power to decide the number of inhabitants that any house shall accommodate, and license it accordingly, and of course have legal power to enforce their decision.

The time has come for a thorough investigation. I would have every room in every house visited by properly appointed officers. I would have every detail as to size of room, number of persons and children, rent paid, etc., etc.; I would have its conditions and fitness for human habitation inquired into and reported upon.

I would miss no house, I would excuse none. A standard should be set as to the condition and position of every house, and the number it might be allowed to accommodate. This would bring many dark things into the light of day, and I am afraid the reputation of many respectable people would suffer, and their pockets too, although they tell us that they “have but a life-interest” in the pestiferous places. But if we drive people out of these places, where will they go?

Well, out they must go! and it is certain that there is at present no place for them!

Places must be prepared for them, and local authorities must prepare them. Let them address themselves to this matter and no longer shirk their duty with regard to the housing of the poor. Let them stop for ever the miserable pretence of housing the poor that they at present pursue. For be it known that they house “respectable” people only, those that have limited families and can pay a high rental.

If local authorities cannot do it, then the State must step in and help them, for it must be done. It seems little use waiting for private speculation or philanthropic trusts to show us the way in this matter, for both want and expect too high an interest for their outlay. But a good return will assuredly be forthcoming if the evil be tackled in a sensible way.

Let no one be downhearted about new schemes for housing the poor not paying! Why, everything connected with the poor from the cradle to the grave is a source of good profit to some one, if not to themselves.

Let a housing plan be big enough and simple enough, and I am certain that it will pay even when it provides for the very poor. But old ideals will have to be forsaken and new ones substituted.

I have for many years considered this question very deeply, and from the side of the very poor. I think that I know how the difficulty can be met, and I am prepared to place my suggestions for housing the poor before any responsible person or authority who would care to consider the matter.

Perhaps it is due to the public to say here that one of the greatest sorrows of my life was my inability to make good a scheme that a rich friend and myself formulated some years ago. This failure was due to the serious illness of my friend, and I hope that it will yet materialise.

But, in addition to the housing, there are other matters which affect the vigour and virility of the poor. School days must be extended till the age of sixteen. Municipal playgrounds open in the evening must be established. If boys and girls are kept at school till sixteen, older and weaker people will be able to get work which these boys have, but ought not to have. The nation demands a vigorous manhood, but the nation cannot have it without some sacrifice, which means doing without child labour, for child labour is the destruction of virile manhood.

Emigration is often looked upon as the great specific. But the multiplication of agencies for exporting the young, the healthy, and the strong to the colonies causes me some alarm. For emigration as at present conducted certainly does not lessen the number of the unfit and the helpless.

It must be apparent to any one who thinks seriously upon this matter that a continuance of the present methods is bound to entail disastrous consequences, and to promote racial decay at home. The problem of the degenerates, the physical and mental weaklings is already a pressing national question. But serious as the question is at the present moment, it is but light in its intensity compared with what it must be in the near future, unless we change our methods. One fact ought to be definitely understood and seriously pondered, and it is this: no emigration agency, no board of guardians, no church organisation and no human salvage organisation emigrates or assists to emigrate young people of either sex who cannot pass a severe medical examination and be declared mentally and physically sound. This demands serious thought; for the puny, the weak and the unfit are ineligible; our colonies will have none of them, and perhaps our colonies are wise, so the unfit remain at home to be our despair and affliction.

But our colonies demand not only physical and mental health, but moral health also, for boys and girls from reformatory and industrial schools are not acceptable; though the training given in these institutions ought to make the young people valuable assets in a new country.

The serious fact that only the best are exported and that all the afflicted and the weak remain at home is, I say, worthy of profound attention.

Thousands of healthy working men with a little money and abundant grit emigrate of their own choice and endeavour. Fine fellows they generally are, and good fortune attends them! Thousands of others with no money but plenty of strength are assisted “out,” and they are equally good, while thousands of healthy young women are assisted “out” also. All through the piece the strong and healthy leave our shores, and the weaklings are left at home.

It is always with mixed feelings that I read of boys and girls being sent to Canada, for while I feel hopeful regarding their future, I know that the matter does not end with them; for I appreciate some of the evils that result to the old country from the method of selection.

Emigration, then, as at present conducted, is no cure for the evil it is supposed to remedy. Nay, it increases the evil, for it secures to our country an ever-increasing number of those who are absolutely unfitted to fulfil the duties of citizenship.

Yet emigration might be a beneficent thing if it were wisely conducted on a comprehensive basis, which should include a fair proportion of those that are now excluded because of their unfitness.

Are we to go on far ever with our present method of dealing with those who have been denied wisdom and stature? Who are what they are, but whose disabilities cannot be charged upon themselves, and for whom there is no place other than prison or workhouse?

Yet many of them have wits, if not brains, and are clever in little ways of their own. At home we refuse them the advantages that are solicitously pressed upon their bigger and stronger brothers. Abroad every door is locked against them. What are they to do? The Army and Navy will have none of them! and industrial life has no place for them. So prison, workhouse and common lodging-houses are their only homes.

Wise emigration methods would include many of them, and decent fellows they would make if given a chance. Oxygen and new environment, with plenty of food, etc., would make an alteration in their physique, and regular work would prove their salvation. But this matter should, and must be, undertaken by the State, for philanthropy cannot deal with it; and when the State does undertake it, consequences unthought-of will follow, for the State will be able to close one-half of its prisons.

It is the helplessness of weaklings that provides the State with more than half its prisoners. Is it impossible, I would ask, for a Government like ours, with all its resources of wealth, power and influence to devise and carry out some large scheme of emigration? If colonial governments wisely refuse our inferior youths, is it not unwise for our own Government to neglect them?

In the British Empire is there no idle land that calls for men and culture? Here we in England have thousands of young fellows who, because of their helplessness, are living lives of idleness and wrongdoing.

Time after time these young men find their way into prison, and every short sentence they undergo sends them back to liberty more hopeless and helpless. Many of them are not bad fellows; they have some qualities that are estimable, but they are undisciplined and helpless. Not all the discharged prisoners’ aid societies in the land, even with Government assistance, can procure reasonable and progressive employment for them.

The thought of thousands of young men, not criminals, spending their lives in a senseless and purposeless round of short imprisonments, simply because they are not quite as big and as strong as their fellows, fills me with wonder and dismay, for I can estimate some of the consequences that result.

Is it impossible, I would ask, for our Government to take up this matter in a really great way? Can no arrangement be made with our colonies for the reception and training of these young fellows? Probably not so long as the colonies can secure an abundance of better human material. But has a bona-fide effort been made in this direction? I much doubt it since the days of transportation.

Is it not possible for our Government to obtain somewhere in the whole of its empire a sufficiency of suitable land, to which the best of them may be transplanted, and on which they may be trained for useful service and continuous work?

Is it not possible to develop the family system for them, and secure a sufficient number of house fathers and mothers to care for them in a domestic way, leaving their physical and industrial training to others? Very few know these young fellows better than myself, and I am bold enough to say that under such conditions the majority of them would prove useful men.

Surely a plan of this description would be infinitely better than continued imprisonments for miserable offences, and much less expensive, too!

I am very anxious to emphasise this point. The extent of our prison population depends upon the treatment these young men receive at the hands of the State.

So long as the present treatment prevails, so long will the State be assured of a permanent prison population.

But the evil does not end with the continuance and expense of prison. The army of the unfit is perpetually increased by this procedure. Very few of these young men I think I may say with safety, none of them after three or four convictions become settled and decent citizens; for they cannot if they would, there is no opportunity. They would not if they could, for the desire is no longer existent.

We have already preventive detention for older persons, who, having been four times convicted of serious crime, are proved to be “habitual criminals.” But hopeless as the older criminals are, the country is quite willing to adopt such measures and bear such expense as may be thought requisite for the purpose of detaining, and perchance reforming them.

But the young men for whom I now plead are a hundred times more numerous and a hundred times more hopeful than the old habitual criminals, whose position excites so much attention. We must have an oversea colony for these young men, and an Act of Parliament for the “preventive detention” of young offenders who are repeatedly convicted.

A third conviction should ensure every homeless offender the certainty of committal to the colony. This would stop for ever the senseless short imprisonment system, for we could keep them free of prison till their third conviction, when they should only be detained pending arrangement for their emigration.

The more I think upon this matter the more firmly I am convinced that nothing less will prevail. Though, of course, even with this plan, the young men who are hopelessly afflicted with disease or deformity must be excluded. For them the State must make provision at home, but not in prison.

A scheme of this character, if once put into active and thorough operation, would naturally work itself out, for year by year the number of young fellows to whom it would apply would grow less and less; but while working itself out, it would also work out the salvation of many young men, and bring lasting benefits upon our country.

Vagrancy, with its attendant evils, would be greatly diminished, many prisons would be closed, workhouses and casual wards would be less necessary. The cost of the scheme would be more than repaid to the community by the savings effected in other ways. The moral effect also would be equally large, and the physical effects would be almost past computing, for it would do much to arrest the decay of the race that appears inseparable from our present conditions and procedure.

But the State must do something more than this; for many young habitual offenders are too young for emigration. For them the State reformatories must be established, regardless of their physical condition. To these reformatories magistrates must have the power of committal as certainly as they have the power of committal to prison. There must be no “by your leave,” no calling in a doctor to examine the offender. But promptly and certainly when circumstances justify the committal to a State reformatory, the youthful offender should go. With the certainty that, be his physique and intellect what they may, he would be detained, corrected and trained for some useful life. Or, if found “quite unfit” or feeble-minded, sent to an institution suitable to his condition.

Older criminals, when proved to be mentally unsound, are detained in places other than prisons till their health warrants discharge. But the potential criminals among the young, no matter how often they are brought before the courts, are either sent back to hopeless liberty or thrust into prison for a brief period.

I repeat that philanthropy cannot attempt to deal with the habitual offenders, either in the days of their boyhood or in their early manhood. For philanthropy can at the most deal with but a few, and those few must be of the very best.

I cannot believe that our colonies would refuse to ratify the arrangement that I have outlined, if they were invited to do so by our own Government, and given proper security. They owe us something; we called them into existence, we guarantee their safety, they receive our grit, blood and money; will they not receive, then, under proper conditions and safeguards, some of our surplus youth, even if it be weak? I believe they will!

In the strictures that I have ventured to pass upon the methods of the Salvation Army, I wish it to be distinctly understood that I make no attack upon the character and intentions of the men and women who compose it. I know that they are both earnest and sincere. For many of them I have a great admiration. My strictures refer to the methods and the methods only.

For long years I have been watchful of results, and I have been so placed in life that I have had plenty of opportunities for seeing and learning. My disappointment has been great, for I expected great things. Many other men and women whose judgment is entitled to respect believe as I do. But they remain silent, hoping that after all great good may come. But I must speak, for I believe the methods adopted are altogether unsound, and in reality tend to aggravate the evils they set out to cure. In 1900 I ventured to express the following opinion of shelters

“Extracts from ‘pictures and problems’

“I look with something approaching dismay at the multiplication of these institutions throughout the length and breadth of our land. To the loafing vagrant class, a very large class, I know, but a class not worthy of much consideration, they are a boon. These men tramp from one town to another, and a week or two in each suits them admirably, till the warm weather and light nights arrive, and then they are off.

“This portion of the ‘submerged’ will always be submerged till some power takes hold of them and compels them to work out their own salvation.

“But there is such a procession of them that the labour homes, etc., get continual recruits, and the managers are enabled to contract for a great deal of unskilled work.

“In all our large towns there are numbers of self-respecting men, men who have committed no crime, save the unpardonable crime of growing old. Time was when such men could get odd clerical work, envelope and circular addressing, and a variety of light but irregular employment, at which, by economy and the help of their wives, they made a sort of living. But these men are now driven to the wall, for their poorly paid and irregular work is taken from them.”

In 1911 A. M. Nicholl, in his not unfriendly book on general Booth and the salvation army, makes the following statement, which I make no apology for reproducing.

His judgment, considering the position he held with the Army for so many years, is worthy of consideration. Here are some of his words

“From an economic standpoint the social experiment of the Salvation Army stands condemned almost root and branch. So much the worse for economics, the average Salvation Army officer will reply. But at the end of twenty years the Army cannot point to one single cause of social distress that it has removed, or to one single act which it has promoted that has dealt a death-blow at one social evil....

“A more serious question, one which lies at the root of all indiscriminate charity, is the value to the community of these shelters. So far as the men in the shelters are benefited by them, they do not elevate them, either physically or morally. A proportion what proportion? are weeded out, entirely by the voluntary action of the men themselves, and given temporary work, carrying sandwich-boards, addressing envelopes, sorting paper, etc.; but the cause of their social dilapidation remains unaltered. They enter the shelter, pay their twopence or fourpence as the case may be (and few are allowed to enter unless they do), they listen to some moral advice once a week, with which they are surfeited inside and outside the shelter, they go to bed, and next morning leave the shelter to face the streets as they came in, The shelter gets no nearer to the cause of their depravity than it does to the economic cause of their failure, or to the economic remedy which the State must eventually introduce....

“The nomads of our civilisation wander past us in their fringy, dirty attire night by night. If a man stops us in the streets and tells us that he is starving, and we offer him a ticket to a labour home or a night shelter, he will tell you that the chances are one out of ten if he will procure admission. The better class of the submerged, or those who use the provision for the submerged in order to gratify their own selfishness, have taken possession of the vacancies, and so they wander on. If a man applies for temporary work, the choice of industry is disappointingly limited. One is tempted to think that the whole superstructure of cheap and free shelters has tended to the standardisation of a low order of existence in this netherworld that attracted the versatile philanthropist at the head of the Salvation Army twenty years ago....

“The general idea about the Salvation Army is, that the nearer it gets to the most abandoned classes, the more wonderful and the more numerous are the converts. It is a sad admission to pass on to the world that the opposite is really the case. The results are fewer. General Booth would almost break his heart if he knew the proportion of men who have been ‘saved,’ in the sense that he most values, through his social scheme. But he ought to know, and the Church and the world ought to know, and in order that it may I will make bold to say that the officials cannot put their hands on the names of a thousand men in all parts of the world who are to-day members of the Army who were converted at the penitent form of shelters and elevators, who are now earning a living outside the control of the Army’s social work.”

But the public appear to have infinite faith in the multiplication and enlargement of these shelters, as the following extract from a daily paper of December 1911 will show

“’Since the days of Mahomet, not forgetting St. Francis and Martin Luther, I doubt if there is any man who has started, without help from the Government, such a world-wide movement as this.’

“This was Sir George Askwith’s tribute to General Booth and the Salvation Army at the opening of the new wing of the men’s Elevators in Spa Road, Bermondsey, yesterday afternoon. The task of declaring the wing open devolved upon the Duke of Argyll, who had beside him on the platform the Duchess of Marlborough, Lady St. Davids, Lord Armstrong, Sir Daniel and Lady Hamilton, Alderman Sir Charles C. Wakefield, Sir Edward Clarke, K.C., Sir George Askwith, and the Mayor of Bermondsey and General Booth.

“The General, who is just back from Denmark, spoke for three-quarters of an hour, notwithstanding his great age and his admission that he was ‘far from well.’ The Elevator, as its name implies, seeks to raise men who are wholly destitute and give them a fresh start. The new wing has been erected at a cost of L10,000, and the Elevator, which accommodates 590 men and covers two-and-a-half acres, represents an expenditure of L30,000, and is the largest institution of its kind in the world.

“‘The men,’ said the General, ’are admitted on two conditions only, that they are willing to obey orders, and ready to work. Before he has his breakfast a man must earn it, and the same with each meal, the ticket given him entitling him to remuneration in proportion to the work he has done. If the men’s conduct is good, they are passed on to another of the Army’s institutions, and ultimately some post is secured for them through the employers of labour with whom the Army is in touch.’”

I believe General Booth to be sincere, and that he believes exactly what he stated. But even sincerity must not be allowed to mislead a generous public. Employers of labour do not, cannot, and will not keep positions open for General Booth or any other man. Employers require strong, healthy men who can give value for the wages paid. Thousands of men who have never entered shelters or prison are not only available but eager for positions that show any prospect of permanence, whether the work be heavy or skilled. For work that requires neither brains, skill or much physical strength, thousands of men whose characters are good are also available. I venture to say that General Booth cannot supply the public with a reasonable list of men who, having passed through the shelters, have been put into permanent work.

For every man and woman who is seeking to uplift their fellows I have heartfelt sympathy. For every organisation that is earnestly seeking to alleviate or remove social evils I wish abundant success. Against the organisations named I have not the slightest feeling. If they were successful in the work they undertake, no one in England would rejoice more than myself. But they are not successful, and because I believe that their claim to success blinds a well-intentioned and generous public, and prevents real consideration of deep-seated evils, I make these comments and give the above extracts.

I question whether any one in London knows better than myself the difficulty of finding employment for a man who is “down,” for I have written hundreds of letters, I have visited numerous employers for this one purpose; I have begged and pleaded with employers, sometimes I have offered “security” for the honesty of men for whom I was concerned.

Occasionally, but only occasionally, was I successful. I have advertised on men’s behalf frequently, but nothing worthy of the name of “work” has resulted. I know the mind of employers, and I know their difficulties; I have been too often in touch with them not to know. I have also been in touch with many men who have been in the shelters, elevators, bridges, labour homes and tents; I know their experience has been one of disappointment. I have written on behalf of such men to the “head-quarters,” but nothing has resulted but a few days’ work at wood-chopping, envelope addressing, or bill distributing, none of which can be called employment.

Day after day men who have been led to expect work wait, and wait in vain, in or about the head-quarters for the promised work that so rarely comes. For these men I am concerned, for them I am bold enough to risk the censure of good people, for I hold that it is not only cruel, but wicked to excite in homeless men hopes that cannot possibly be realised.

This point has been driven home to my very heart, for I have seen what comes to pass when the spark of hope is extinguished. Better, far better, that a man who is “down” should trust to his own exertions and rely upon himself than entertain illusions and rely upon others.

And now I close by presenting in catalogue form some of the steps that I believe to be necessary for dealing with the terrible problems of our great underworld.

First: the permanent detention and segregation of all who are classified as feeble-minded. Second: the permanent detention and segregation of all professional tramps. Third: proper provision for men and women who are hopelessly crippled or disabled. Fourth: establishment by the educational authorities, or by the State of reformatory schools, for youthful delinquents and juvenile adults regardless of physical weakness, deprivations or disease. Fifth: compulsory education, physical, mental and technical, up to sixteen years of age. Sixth: the establishment of municipal play-grounds and organised play for youths who have left school. Seventh: national and State-aided emigration to include the best of the “unfit.” Eighth: the abolition of common lodging-houses, and the establishment of municipal lodging-houses for men and also for women. Ninth: the establishment of trade boards for all industries. Tenth: proper and systematic help for widows who have young children. Eleventh: thorough inspection and certification by local authorities of all houses and “dwellings” inhabited by the poor. Twelfth: housing for the very poor by municipal authorities, with abolition of fire-places, the heating to be provided from one central source. The housing to include a restaurant where nourishing but simple food may be obtained for payment that ensures a small profit. Thirteenth: more abundant and reasonable provision of work by the State, local authorities and for the unemployed. Fourteenth: a co-ordination of all philanthropic and charity agencies to form one great society with branches in every parish.

Give us these things, and surely they are not impossible, and half our present expensive difficulties would disappear. Fewer prisons, workhouses and hospitals would be required. The need for shelters and labour homes would not exist. The necessity for the activities of many charitable agencies whose constant appeals are so disturbing and puzzling, but whose work is now required, would pass away too.

But with all these things given, there would be still great need for the practice of kindness and the development of brotherly love. For without brotherly love and kindly human interest, laws are but cast-iron rules, and life but a living death. What is life worth? What can life be worth if it be only self-centred? To love is to live! to feel and take an interest in others is to be happy indeed, and to feel the pulses thrill.

And I am sure that love is abundant in our old country, but it is largely paralysed and mystified. For many objects that love would fain accomplish appear stupendous and hopeless. What a different old England we might have, if the various and hopeless classes that I have enumerated were permanently detained. For then love would come to its own, the real misfortunes of life would then form a passport to practical help. Widows would no longer be unceremoniously kicked into the underworld; accidents and disablements would no longer condemn men and women to live lives of beggary. Best of all, charitable and kindly deeds would no longer be done by proxy. It is because I see how professional and contented beggary monopolises so much effort and costs so much money; because I see how it deprives the really unfortunate and the suffering poor of the practical help that would to them be such a blessed boon, that I am anxious for its days to be ended. May that day soon come, for when it comes, there will be some chance of love and justice obtaining deliverance for the oppressed and deserving poor who abound in London’s dark underworld.