James Greenwood: A night in the workhouse

By the time the churches were chiming 2, matters had once more adjusted themselves, and silence reigned, to be disturbed only by drinkers at the pail, or such as, otherwise prompted, stalked into the open yard. Kay, for one, visited it. I mention this unhappy young wretch particularly, because he went out without a single rag to his back. I looked out at the rent in the canvas, and saw the frosty moon shining on him. When he returned, and crept down between Punch and another, he muttered to himself, 'Warm again! O my G—d! warm again!'

Whether there is a rule which closes the casual wards after a certain hour I do not know; but before one o'clock our number was made up, the last corner signalizing his appearance with a pas seul . His rug over his shoulders, he waltzed into the shed, waving his hands, and singing in an affective voice, as he sidled along—

— a couplet which had an intensely comical effect. This gentleman had just come from a pantomime where he had learned his song, probably. Too poor to pay for a lodging, he could only muster means for a seat in the gallery of 'the Vic,' where he was well entertained, judging from the flattering manner in which he spoke of the clown. The columbine was less fortunate in his opinion. 'She's werry dickey!—ain't got what I call 'move' about her.' However, the wretched young woman was respited now from the scourge of his criticism; for the critic and his listeners were fast asleep; and yet I doubt whether any one of the company slept very soundly. Every moment some one shifted uneasily, and as the night wore on the silence was more and more irritated by the sound of coughing. This was one of the most distressing things in the whole adventure. The conversation was horrible, the tales that were told more horrible still, and worse than either (though not by any means the most infamous things to be heard—I dare not even hint at them) was that song, with its bestial chorus shouted from a dozen throats; but at any rate they kept the blood warm with constant hot flushes of anger; while as for the coughing, to lie on the flagstones in what was nothing better than an open shed, and listen to that, hour after hour, chilled one's very heart with pity. Every variety of cough that ever I heard was to be heard there: the hollow cough, the short cough, the hysterical cough, the bark that comes at regular intervals, like the quarter-chime of a clock, as if to mark off the progress of decay; coughing from vast hollow chests, coughing from little narrow ones—now one, now another, now two or three together, and then a minute's interval of silence in which to think of it all, and wonder who would begin next. One of the young reprobates above me coughed so grotesquely like the chopping of wood that I named him in my mind the Woodcutter. Now and then I found myself coughing too, which may have added just a little to the poignant distress these awfully constant and various sounds occasioned me. They were good in one way, they made one forget what wretches they were who, to all appearances, were so rapidly 'chopping' their way to a pauper's graveyard. I did not care about the more matured ruffians so much, but, though the youngest, the boys like Kay, were unquestionably amongst the most infamous of my comrades, to hear what cold and hunger and vice had done for them at 15 was almost enough to make a man cry, and there were boys there even younger than these.

At half-past two, every one being asleep, or at least lying still, Daddy came in and counted us—one, two, three, four, and so on, in a whisper. Then, finding the pail empty (it was nearly full at half past 9, when I entered), he considerately went and refilled it, and even took much trouble in searching for the tin pot which served as a drinking cup, and which the last corner had playfully thrown to the farther end of the shed. I ought to have mentioned that the pail stood close to my head, so that I had peculiar opportunities of study as one after another of my comrades came to the fountain to drink; just as the brutes do in those books of African travel. The pail refilled, Daddy returned, and was seen no more till morning.

It still wanted four hours and a half to 7 o'clock—the hour of rising—and never before in my life did time appear to creep so slowly. I could hear the chimes of a parish church, and of the Parliament Houses, as well as those of a wretched tinkling Dutch clock somewhere on the premises. The parish church was the first to announce the hour (an act of kindness I feel bound to acknowledge), Westminster came next, the lazy Dutchman declining his consent to the time o'day till fully sixty seconds afterwards. And I declare I thought that difference of sixty seconds an injury—if the officers of the house took their time from the Dutchman. It may seem a trifle, but a minute is something when a man is lying on a cold flagstone, and the wind of a winter night is blowing in your hair. 3 o'clock, 4 o'clock struck, and still there was nothing to beguile the time but observation, under the one flaring gaslight, of the little heaps of outcast humanity strewn about the floor, and after a while, I find, one may even become accustomed to the sight of one's fellow creatures lying around you like covered corpses in a railway shed. For most of the company were now bundled under the rugs in the ghastly way I have already described—though here and there a cropped head appeared, surmounted by a billy-cock like my own, or by a greasy cloth cap. Five o'clock, six o'clock chimed, and then I had news—most welcome—of the world without, and of the real beginning of day. Half a dozen factory bells announced that it was time for working men to go to labour; but my companions were not working men, and so snored on. Out through the gap in the canvas the stars were still to be seen shining on the black sky, but that did not alter the fact that it was six o'clock in the morning. I snapped my fingers at the Dutchman, with his sixty seconds slow, for in another hour I fondly hoped to be relieved from duty. A little while and doors were heard to open and shut; yet a little while, and the voice of Daddy was audible in conversation with another early bird; and then I distinctly caught the word 'bundles'. Blessed sound! I longed for my bundle—for my pleasing brown coat—for my warm if unsightly jersey—for my corduroys and liberty.

'Clang!' went the workhouse clock. 'Now, then! wake em up!' cried Daddy. I was already up, sitting up, that is, being anxious to witness the resurrection of the ghastly figures rolled in the rugs. But nobody but myself rose at the summons. They knew what it means well enough, and in sleepy voices cursed the bell and wished it in several dreadful places; but they did not move until there came in at the hole in the canvas, two of the pauper inhabitants of the house, bearing bundles. 'Thirty two,' Twenty eight!' they bawled, but not my number, which was thirty-four. Neither thirty two nor twenty eight, however, seemed eager to accept his good fortune in being first called. They were called upon three several times before they would answer; and then they replied with a savage 'Chuck it here, can't you!' 'Not before you chucks over your shirt and ticket,' the bundle-holder answered, whereupon 'Twenty eight' sat up, and, divesting himself of his borrowed shirt, flung it with his wooden ticket, and his bundle was flung back in return.

It was some time before bundle No. 34 turned up, so that I had fair opportunity to observe my neighbours. The decent men slipped into their rags as soon as they got them, but the blackguards were in no hurry. Some indulged in a morning pipe to prepare themselves for the fatigue of dressing, while others, loosening their bundles as they squatted naked, commenced an investigation for certain little animals which shall be nameless.