LETTERS TO THE EDITOR
[Correspond ems are requested to keep their letters as brief as is reasonably possible. Signed letters are given a preference over those bearing a pseudonym, and the latter must be accompanied by the name and address of the author, which will be treated as confidential.—Ed. THE SPECTATOR
THE L.C.C. AND THE DESTITUTE
[To the Editor of THE SPECTATOR] S1R,—I have seen no reference to London's vagrant and homeless poor in any of the reviews of the London County Council's half-century. There have been such remarkable changes not only in the vagrants themselves, but in the public attitude towards them, and in the system of administration which affects them, that some of the more striking results ought not to pass unrecorded at this time. Let me recall some of our experiences.
Very early one winter's morning soon after I came to London from Scotland, over fifty years ago, I set out on a pilgrimage of the streets of London. What did I find? Hundreds of men, and some scores of women, homeless, hungry, dirty, despairing, huddled on the steps of buildings, beneath railway arches, in stables, in vans, even in dustbins. Wherever there was the least shelter from wind, rain and sleet they eagerly sought it. Others, apparently beyond caring for body or soul, sprawled in a sullen stupor on the seats of the Embankment.
The first thing these homeless wanderers needed was food and shelter. The Salvation Army had already set out to provide both, but the task was then far from complete. Matters were at one time so organised that these outcasts lined up in the street at 2 o'clock in the morning to receive a ration of soup and bread. The process continued until a thousand, at times fourteen hundred, had been catered for. The homeless themselves were full of gratitude. Elsewhere our efforts excited more criticism than praise. It was said that the free rations actually attracted these gatherings of the homeless. I think that those who suggested this entirely mis- read the situation and ignored the true facts, for we know that it was the actual existence of hundreds of homeless and out- cast men and women which moved the leaders of the Salvation Army and others to provide food for the wanderers they found.
Jr was said, too, that we were exaggerating the numbers to be found on the streets at night, but an official census taken by the London County Council showed on one occasion 2474 homeless persons--mostly men, for the number of homeless women to be found on the streets has always been negligible. The average nightly number of these outcasts during the six years 1905-1910 as shown by the official census was 2,000, and it has to be noted that the official census was taken each year in mid-February (the coldest season of the year) and between the hours of 2 and 4 o'clock in the morning (the coldest time of the day).
Now, what was the official position and attitude in London at this time in regard to the homeless and the use of the casual wards provided by the local authorities? The answer was this, that "within the Metropolitan area there were lots of vacant beds, hundreds of them in the casual wards." This was quite true, but it was equally true, however, that the empty beds might be in Woolwich in the South-East, or in Hammersmith in the North-West, or at Hackney in the North- East, or at Battersea in the South-West, while the men who needed the beds were miles away on the Embankment.
At this time there were 28 authorities administering the London casual wards ; there was no co-ordination between them, and a homeless wanderer applying at a ward that was full could not be told where there was a vacant bed. Then the tasks imposed on the wayfarers (stone-breaking for clerks as an example) were unsuitable, and regulations, rigidly applied, hampered the movement of decent men honestly in search of work. There were thus very good reasons for the empty beds in the casual wards and men dead-beat on the Embankment It was the heart and brain of Sir J. G. Tollemache-Sinclair, the grandfather of Sir Archibald Sinclair, the late Secretary for Scotland and now Leader of the Liberal Party in Great Britain, which gave birth to the idea of unifying the London casual wards under one control, urging the co-operation of the police and Poor Law Authorities with the voluntary societies, and the linking-up of all by telephone so that a night wanderer in any pan of London could be assured of a bed somewhere. Sir J. G. Tollemache-Sinclair, who gave us hundreds of pounds for our shelter work, offered to pay the cost of the installation: the authorities only frowned on his zeal!
After years of pleading on our part, the administration of the London casual wards was in 1912 unified by an Order of the Local Government Board, and the old Metropolitan Asylums Board was made responsible. There followed closet co-operation with the police and with ourselves and other charitable organisations. The number of casual wards was reduced from 28 to 12 and the number of beds from 1,814 to 834 (and these are seldom all occupied). There was at the same time better provision made for the casuals and a more kindly administration for bona fide destitute wayfarers. Con- tinued co-operation with the authorities brought the numbers down to 431 in 1913 and 434 in 1914. It did not require the Great War to show that this problem could be successfully dealt with. Had the progressive diminution evidence before 1914 been maintained, we should some years ago have reached the point when only the daily "crop," averaging nowadays 50—and this includes a few habituals—would have had to be dealt with. The actual figures recorded by the London County Council census for the past three years were 60, 42, 53.
It may be, as the London County Council suggests in a recent Report, that the success in reducing the numbers has attended the establishment of the Homeless Poor Night Office, but without the 7,000 beds provided by the Rowton Houses and the Council itself, and the 6,000 provided by the Salva- tion Army—all since "Darkest England" was launched—the Welfare Office for the Homeless would have found its task rather difficult Fifty years ago the common lodging-houses—doss-houses as many of them were called—were none too clean and were full to overflowing. A large number of the homeless were verminous and the Army set up de-lousing fumigators at most of its shelters. In this way we made a valuable contri- bution to the more hygienic condition of London today : but it was seven years after the launching of the "Darkest England Scheme" before the necessary legislation was passed requiring Local Authorities to provide for the cleansing of verminous persons.
In the method of dealing with infectious diseases we somc- times found ourselves in conflict with the Health Authorities --but always with the most advanced scientists behind us! In an epidemic of smallpox it was the Salvation Army leaders who, acting primarily on humanitarian grounds, challenged the wisdom of the methods by which the London Health Authorities were dealing with the disease. Ultimately our views prevailed, and instead of clean lodging-houses being closed and the centres of infection multiplied by the scatter- ing of the lodgers, the lodging-houses and shelters were kept open and the lodgers kept under sympathetic observation for a few days.
In our first efforts we graded our accommodation, charging id., 2d., 3d., 4d. and 6d. per night, and provided work for the man who was absolutely destitute so that he could have a warm shelter and a basin of nourishing soup and a piece of bread without any sense of loss of independence. We still keep an open door in our " elevator " work-shops for those in need of such help, and our officers have discretionary powers as to free admission to any of our Shelters. Every- where the helpful atmosphere of the Christian faith is main- tained by the fervour of our officers and workers. The minimum charge for a bed in London nowadays is id., and prices range up to Is. 7d. per night ; thousands of beds in cubicles being provided : so much has London progressed in her social and economic conditions.—Yours faithfully, DAVID C. LAMB, Commissioner. The Salvation Army International Headquarters, London, E.C. 4.
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