A STORY OF CANAL LIFE.*

As a work of art, it is impossible to say anything pleasant of Life in the Cut. The story, where not unnatural, is repulsive; the talk, alike of ladies and gentlemen, servants and barge-

people, is, to say the least, unusual ; the characters have hardly a spark of life among them. And yet the book has a certain truth and a certain power ; and, considering the object with which it is written, we are obliged to hope that it will be read. For this rather sensational and very unattractive story is dedicated to George Smith, of Coalville, and paints once more in the strongest, but not perhaps in exaggerated colours, the degraded lives of some boat-people, and the sufferings of their children. Acts of Parliament have not yet, it seems, done much to improve the state of this wander- ing population. They might not themselves, perhaps, think compulsory education a blessing, but they have no chance of it, and very little of any education at all—" 20,000 out of the 30,000 canal children never go to school." They live gipsy lives, most of them ; the wild children, almost from the time they are able to walk, begin to take their share in working the boat; they tramp for miles, leading the horse, through snow or heat; they open and shut the great lock-gates, hard and dangerous work ; they sleep huddled in airless cabins, where decency, if not im- possible, must be very difficult. In all this girls and boys are alike ; but the boys have the most dangerous work of all— work which we had fancied was left behind in the dark ages— that of pulling the boats through the tunnels, "legging through," as they call it. Such risks as these, one must add, are not so often run by lads on board boats that belong to firms or companies ; but many of the barges are the property of the men who work them, and, as the canal people tell Mr. Bentley,—" It bees a hard life, Sir, that—a very poor living; perhaps a week idle, with the horse and the family to keep, and then working day and night A man on his own account is the worse life of any. The boats do bees small. Besides, they save expense where they can, and leg through rather than pay us or the tug for taking them through the tunnels." The dangers of " legging through " are explained to Mr. Bentley by little " Ness," the child he has rescued from her cruel parents and her hard life on board. And here we may say that " Ness," with her natural refinement and natural religion, her shrinking from sin as well as from pain, is not nearly so ideal a picture as she seems at first sight :--

"' Who is 'Zra P'—' My big brother, zur. Him as saved me all he could. I be feared for him sometimes of the buggut in the tunnel. And he bee to leg through this spring, I know !'—Again the child sighed.= "The buggut !" "leg through !" what does that mean P' asked Mr. Bentley, with a puzzled look. = As how he shoves the barge along through the tunnel with his feet agin the slimy walls ; hard work that, and no mistake. Zum dies of it, they do. The hardship is arful, and the Kitcru Buggut fearsome. Zum as legs through the Castle tunnel, special for the fust time, never sees daylight agin. And I does want to see 'Zra.'—' But what's the buggut ? Zum says a woman's apurrit, what was d'owned there ; she do cum up from the black water, and pull the boys off the plank ; un never sees, you know, un only hears a splash, an' all is over, and the barge, her do scrape along arful, till they bring her straight again. Big Steve went that way, last year.'—' Do you mean to say he was drowned ?'—' Don't know. P'raps our Father in heaven do. I only knows Steve were on the plank when we went into 'are tunnel; there were an arful screech when half-way through ; and when we came out, Steve were not there, and fayther ti:d say the buggut had tuk he.' "

There is horror enough here ; but " Ness's " father's boat, the Waterwitch,' is the scene of greater horrors still. The things described may be possible, but we quite refuse to believe that they are anything but exceptional, even in the worst depths of neglected, half-savage barge-life. It is also exceptional to

meet with such a father and mother as Steve and his wife, and a family of children whose tendencies, on the whole, are foot bad.

But the present writer can say from experience that "Ness" is not a fancy picture. There rises to one's memory a little, slender, dark-eyed girl in rags—but the rags were clean—born

and brought up, with her brother and sisters, on board a canal-boat ; a bad, drunken father, a good, rough mother ; utterly ignorant, perfectly intelligent, gentle in mind and

• Life in the Cat. By Amos nestle. London : Swan Sonnensehein, Lowrey, and Co. 1888.

manners, with a strange terror and hatred of the bad men and words and ways that in her boat-life were only too familiar. She had been all over England and Wales, and her experiences were many, but her pleasures had been few. She did not care for the enjoyments of the others. Fairs, for instance ; her sisters liked the shows they saw there, but 5— "was silly and would not go." " Oh ! they frighten me," she said ; " I went to one and there were ever so many murders in the first part." The adventures that the child had gone through, small and delicate as she looked, were enough to account for the wistful look in those dark eyes. Long days of leading the horse, doing a boy's work because her brother was not old enough; long hours of misery caused by father's' ways—but S— in her loyalty would never hear or say a word against him : " He's father, you know ;"—more than one narrow escape, such as happened to her one day at the great Worcester lock, where in opening the gates she fell in. Her father saved her by catching her with a boat-hook, and her first thought on being pulled out of the water was of the beating she expected for her awkwardness. Once something had happened to the horse, and S-- and her mother pulled the boat back to the Potteries themselves. However, perhaps S—'s story is out of place here, and it is only meant for an illustration of what may be found, in real life, in the cabin of a canal-boat.

One is glad to know that in these later days a great deal is done for boat-people that legislation cannot do. Acts of Parliament, after all, cannot raise up friends for these people, and in this best way civilise them. In many parts of England, too, the Church is doing what she can for these wanderers, who seem out of reach of her parochial system. We recom- mend to Mr. Reade, for instance, the yearly Report of the Lichfield Diocesan Barge Mission, which has a fine field in the crowded canals of the Black Country and the Potteries One of the brightest points about this work is the interest which the boat-people themselves take in the efforts of their

friends to civilise and help and teach them. Gradually, perhaps, by such means as these, there may rise a kind of public opinion among this wild population itself, which may some day make such pictures of barge-life as we have in Life in the Cut, nothing more than frightful exaggeration.

Slowly, but surely, light and knowledge and morality seem to be winning their way. "Somebody thinks o' we now," says a Shropshire boatman. At the Church Congress at Wolver- hampton last October, one hears with interest of " the at- tentive faces of a row or two of canal men, whose characteristic dress and appearance marked them out from their fellow working men."

As to the growing love of reading among these people, we must quote a few lines from the Report :—

" The distribution of literature (large-typed and pictured) is an

important and much-valued part of our work Many interesting accounts are given in the log-books of remarks made by the boating people with reference to these books

and leaflets I never knew,' said a young open-boatman (who was educated in a Birmingham Board school), that the Bible was so interesting.'—' I canna read mysel',' remarked the captain of a monkey-boat, but I like to hear the lad read the book.' On the way to Bidder's Basin,' writes Mr. Heap, of Stoke, in his journal on August 3rd, I was on a boat, and we met a Wolverhampton boat, the driver of which, a young lad, brown with ore as a fox, and ragged as a hedge, sang out, " Master, gi'e my father a ' Trangetist ; chuck it to him, if ye canna reach him !" His father was at the helm ; so, folding the paper lengthways, I got it safely delivered by both of us holding our hands out as far as we could ; and then the lad shouted his thanks, laughing and throwing his arms about in great glee. "

Some little time ago, a scheme was set on foot at Wolver-

hampton for bringing the boat-children to school, and a boarding-home was opened for them. But the scheme has for the present failed, and the children lead their gipsy lives still.

Of course, it is slow work, and the little light is still "shining in a dark place." Though what is, in many cases, the singular attractiveness of the boat-people, makes it seem easier to gain their friendship and confidence, and to raise their ideas of morality, the temptations that surround them are too great to be soon conquered, and the habits of a roving life, sometimes for generations, can never, perhaps, be made to fit in with ordinary civilisation. With all her hardships, with all her natural refinement, our friend 5— could not long be happy in a house on land. And knowing this, it was some- thing of a satisfaction to find " Ness " on board a barge again ; the old barge, the Waterwitch,' once a black hole of horror to be avoided, now a centre of help and goodness in "the Cut."