A word about the sleeping accommodation open to a homeless person in London. At present it is impossible to get a BED in any non-charitable institution in London for less than sevenpence a night. If you cannot afford seven-pence for a bed, you must put up with one of the following substitutes:
1. The Embankment. Here is the account that Paddy gave me of sleeping on the Embankment:
‘De whole t’ing wid de Embankment is gettin’ to sleep early. You got to be on your bench by eight o’clock, because dere ain’t too many benches and sometimes dey’re all taken. And you got to try to get to sleep at once. ‘Tis too cold to sleep much after twelve o’clock, an’ de police turns you off at four in de mornin’. It ain’t easy to sleep, dough1, wid dem bloody2 trams flyin’ past your head all de time, an’ dem sky-signs across de river flickin’ on an’ off in your eyes. De cold’s cruel. Dem as sleeps dere generally wraps demselves up in newspaper, but it don’t do much good. You’d be bloody lucky if you got t’ree hours’ sleep.’
I have slept on the Embankment and found that it corresponded to Paddy’s description. It is, however, much better than not sleeping at all, which is the alternative if you spend the night in the streets, elsewhere than on the Embankment. According to the law in London, you may sit down for the night, but the police must move you on if they see you asleep; the Embankment and one or two odd corners (there is one behind the Lyceum Theatre) are special exceptions. This law is evidently a piece of wilful3 offensive-ness. Its object, so it is said, is to prevent people from dying of exposure; but clearly if a man has no home and is going to die of exposure, die he will, asleep or awake. In Paris there is no such law. There, people sleep by the score under the Seine bridges, and in doorways4, and on benches in the squares, and round the ventilating shafts5 of the Metro6, and even inside the Metro stations. It does no apparent harm. No one will spend a night in the street if he can possibly help it, and if he is going to stay out of doors he might as well be allowed to sleep, if he can.
2. The Twopenny Hangover. This comes a little higher than the Embankment. At the Twopenny Hangover, the lodgers7 sit in a row on a bench; there is a rope in front of them, and they lean on this as though leaning over a fence. A man, humorously called the valet, cuts the rope at five in the morning. I have never been there myself, but Bozo had been there often. I asked him whether anyone could possibly sleep in such an attitude, and he said that it was more comfortable than it sounded — at any rate, better than bare floor. There are similar shelters in Paris, but the charge there is only twenty-five centimes (a halfpenny) instead of twopence.
3. The Coffin8, at fourpence a night. At the Coffin you sleep in a wooden box, with a tarpaulin9 for covering. It is cold, and the worst thing about it are the bugs10, which, being enclosed in a box, you cannot escape.
Above this come the common lodging-houses, with charges varying between sevenpence and one and a penny a night. The best are the Rowton Houses, where the charge is a shilling, for which you get a cubicle11 to yourself, and the use of excellent bathrooms. You can also pay half a crown for a ‘special’, which is practically hotel accommodation. The Rowton Houses are splendid buildings, and the only objection to them is the strict discipline, with rules against cooking, card-playing, etc. Perhaps the best advertisement for the Rowton Houses is the fact that they are always full to overflowing12. The Bruce Houses, at one and a penny, are also excellent.
Next best, in point of cleanliness, are the Salvation13 Army hostels14, at sevenpence or eightpence. They vary (I have been in one or two that were not very unlike common lodging-houses), but most of them are clean, and they have good bathrooms; you have to pay extra for a bath, however. You can get a cubicle for a shilling. In the eightpenny dormitories the beds are comfortable, but there are so many of them (as a rule at least forty to a room), and so close together, that it is impossible to get a quiet night. The numerous restrictions15 stink16 of prison and charity. The Salvation Army hostels would only appeal to people who put cleanliness before anything else.
Beyond this there are the ordinary common lodging-houses. Whether you pay sevenpence or a shilling, they are all stuffy17 and noisy, and the beds are uniformly dirty and uncomfortable. What redeems18 them are their LAISSEZ-FAIRE atmosphere and the warm home-like kitchens where one can lounge at all hours of the day or night. They are squalid dens19, but some kind of social life is possible in them. The women’s lodging-houses are said to be generally worse than the men’s, and there are very few houses with accommodation for married couples. In fact, it is nothing out of the common for a homeless man to sleep in one lodging-house and his wife in another.
At this moment at least fifteen thousand people in London are living in common lodging-houses. For an unattached man earning two pounds a week, or less, a lodging-house is a great convenience. He could hardly get a furnished room so cheaply, and the lodging-house gives him free firing, a bathroom of sorts, and plenty of society. As for the dirt, it is a minor20 evil. The really bad fault of lodging-houses is that they are places in which one pays to sleep, and in which sound sleep is impossible. All one gets for one’s money is a bed measuring five feet six by two feet six, with a hard convex mattress21 and a pillow like a block of wood, covered by one cotton counterpane and two grey, stinking23 sheets. In winter there are blankets, but never enough. And this bed is in a room where there are never less than five, and sometimes fifty or sixty beds, a yard or two apart. Of course, no one can sleep soundly in such circumstances. The only other places where people are herded24 like this are barracks and hospitals. In the public wards25 of a hospital no one even hopes to sleep well. In barracks the soldiers are crowded, but they have good beds, and they are healthy; in a common lodging-house nearly all the lodgers have chronic26 coughs, and a large number have bladder diseases which make them get up at all the hours of the night. The result is a perpetual racket, making sleep impossible. So far as my observation goes, no one in a lodging-house sleeps more than five hours a night — a damnable swindle when one has paid sevenpence or more.
Here legislation could accomplish something. At present there is all manner of legislation by the L.C.C. about lodging-houses, but it is not done in the interests of the lodgers. The L.C.C. only exert themselves to forbid drinking, gambling27, fighting, etc. etc. There is no law to say that the beds in a lodging-house must be comfortable. This would be quite an easy thing to enforce — much easier, for instance, than restrictions upon gambling. The lodging-house keepers should be compelled to provide adequate bedclothes and better mattresses28, and above all to divide their dormitories into cubicles29. It does not matter how small a cubicle is, the important thing is that a man should be alone when he sleeps. These few changes, strictly30 enforced, would make an enormous difference. It is not impossible to make a lodging-house reasonably comfortable at the usual rates of payment. In the Groydon municipal lodging-house, where the charge is only ninepence, there are cubicles, good beds, chairs (a very rare luxury in lodging-houses), and kitchens above ground instead of in a cellar. There is no reason why every ninepenny lodging-house should not come up to this standard.
Of course, the owners of lodging-houses would be opposed EN BLOC22 to any improvement, for their present business is an immensely profitable one. The average house takes five or ten pounds a night, with no bad debts (credit being strictly forbidden), and except for rent the expenses are small. Any improvement would mean less crowding, and hence less profit. Still, the excellent municipal lodging-house at Croydon shows how well one CAN be served for ninepence. A few well-directed laws could make these conditions general. If the authorities are going to concern themselves with lodging-houses at all, they ought to start by making them more comfortable, not by silly restrictions that would never be tolerated in a hotel.
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1
dough
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| n.生面团；钱，现款 | |
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bloody
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| adj.非常的的；流血的；残忍的；adv.很；vt.血染 | |
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3
wilful
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| adj.任性的，故意的 | |
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doorways
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| n.门口，门道( doorway的名词复数 ) | |
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shafts
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| n.轴( shaft的名词复数 )；（箭、高尔夫球棒等的）杆；通风井；一阵（疼痛、害怕等） | |
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metro
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| n.地铁；adj.大都市的；(METRO)麦德隆(财富500强公司之一总部所在地德国，主要经营零售) | |
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lodgers
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| n.房客，租住者( lodger的名词复数 ) | |
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coffin
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| n.棺材，灵柩 | |
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tarpaulin
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| n.涂油防水布，防水衣，防水帽 | |
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bugs
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| adj.疯狂的，发疯的n.窃听器( bug的名词复数 )；病菌；虫子；[计算机]（制作软件程序所产生的意料不到的）错误 | |
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cubicle
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| n.大房间中隔出的小室 | |
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overflowing
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| n. 溢出物,溢流 adj. 充沛的，充满的 动词overflow的现在分词形式 | |
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13
salvation
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| n.（尤指基督）救世，超度，拯救，解困 | |
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hostels
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| n.旅舍，招待所( hostel的名词复数 )；青年宿舍 | |
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restrictions
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| 约束( restriction的名词复数 )； 管制； 制约因素； 带限制性的条件（或规则） | |
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16
stink
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| vi.发出恶臭；糟透，招人厌恶；n.恶臭 | |
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stuffy
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| adj.不透气的，闷热的 | |
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18
redeems
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| 补偿( redeem的第三人称单数 )； 实践； 解救； 使…免受责难 | |
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dens
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| n.牙齿，齿状部分；兽窝( den的名词复数 )；窝点；休息室；书斋 | |
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minor
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| adj.较小(少)的，较次要的；n.辅修学科；vi.辅修 | |
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mattress
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| n.床垫，床褥 | |
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bloc
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| n.集团；联盟 | |
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stinking
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| adj.臭的，烂醉的，讨厌的v.散发出恶臭( stink的现在分词 )；发臭味；名声臭；糟透 | |
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24
herded
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| 群集，纠结( herd的过去式和过去分词 )； 放牧； （使）向…移动 | |
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wards
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| 区( ward的名词复数 )； 病房； 受监护的未成年者； 被人照顾或控制的状态 | |
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chronic
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| adj.(疾病)长期未愈的，慢性的；极坏的 | |
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gambling
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| n.赌博；投机 | |
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mattresses
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| 褥垫，床垫( mattress的名词复数 ) | |
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cubicles
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| n.小卧室，斗室( cubicle的名词复数 ) | |
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strictly
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| adv.严厉地，严格地；严密地 | |
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