George Orwell - Down and Out in Paris and London

slices and buying half an ounce of tobacco, I had a

halfpenny left. I did not care to ask B. for more money

yet, so there was nothing for it but to go to a casual

ward. I had very little idea how to set about this, but I

knew that there was a casual ward at Romton, so I

walked out there, arriving at three or four in the after-

noon. Leaning against the pigpens in Romton market-

place was a wizened old Irishman, obviously a tramp. I

went and leaned beside him, and presently offered him

my tobacco-box. He opened the box and looked at the

tobacco in astonishment:

"By God," he said, "dere's sixpennorth o' good baccy

here! Where de hell d'you get hold o' dat? You ain't

been on de road long."

"What, don't you have tobacco on the road?" I said.

"Oh, we

has it. Look."

He produced a rusty tin which had once held Oxo

Cubes. In it were twenty or thirty cigarette ends, picked

up from the pavement. The Irishman said that he rarely

got any other tobacco; he added that, with care, one

could collect two ounces of tobacco a day on the

London pavements.

"D'you come out o' one o' de London spikes [casual

wards], eh?" he asked me.

I said yes, thinking this would make him accept me as a

fellow tramp, and asked him what the spike at Romton

was like. He said:

"Well, 'tis a cocoa spike. Dere's tay spikes, and cocoa

spikes, and skilly spikes. Dey don't give you skilly in

Romton, t'ank God-leastways, dey didn't de last time I

was here. I been up to York and round Wales since."

"What is skilly?" I said.

"Skilly? A can o' hot water wid some bloody oatmeal

at de bottom; dat's skilly. De skilly spikes is always de

worst."

We stayed talking for an hour or two. The Irishman was a

friendly old man, but he smelt very unpleasant, which was

not surprising when one learned how many diseases he

suffered from. It appeared (he described his symptoms

fully) that taking him from top to bottom he had the

following things wrong with him: on his crown, which

was bald, he had eczema; he was shortsighted, and had no

glasses; he had chronic bronchitis; he had some

undiagnosed pain in the back; he had dyspepsia; he had

urethritis; he had varicose veins, bunions and flat feet.

With this assemblage of diseases he had tramped the

roads for fifteen years.

At about five the Irishmen said, "Could you do wid e

cup o' tay? De spike don't open till six."

"I should think I could."

"Well, dere's a place here where dey gives you a free

cup o' tay and a bun.

Good tay it is. Dey makes you say

a lot o' bloody prayers after; but hell! It all passes de

time away. You come wid me."

He led the way to a small tin-roofed shed in a side-

street, rather like a village cricket pavilion. About

twenty-five other tramps were waiting. A few of them

were dirty old habitual vagabonds, the majority decent-

looking lads from the north, probably miners or cotton

operatives out of work. Presently the door opened and a

lady in a blue silk dress, wearing gold spectacles end a

crucifix, welcomed us in. Inside were thirty or forty hard

chairs, a harmonium, and a very gory lithograph of the

Crucifixion.

Uncomfortably we took off our caps end sat down. The

lady handed out the tea, and while we ate and drank she

moved to and fro, talking benignly. She talked upon

religious subjects-about Jesus Christ always having e

soft spot for poor rough men like us, and about how

quickly the time passed when you were in church, and

what a difference it made to a man on the road if he said

his prayers regularly. We hated it. We sat against the

well fingering our caps (a tramp feels indecently exposed

with his cap off), and turning pink and trying to mumble

something when the lady addressed us. There was no

doubt that she meant it all kindly. As she came up to one

of the north country lads with the plate of buns, she said

to him:

"And you, my boy, how long is it since you knelt down

and spoke with your Father in Heaven?"

Poor lad, not a word could he utter; but his belly

answered for him, with a disgraceful rumbling which

it set up at sight of the food. Thereafter he was so

overcome with shame that he could scarcely swallow his

bun. Only one men managed to answer the lady in her

own style, end he was a spry, red-nosed fellow looking

like a corporal who had lost his stripe for drunkenness.

He could pronounce the words "the dear Lord Jesus"

with less shame then anyone I ever saw. No doubt he had

learned the knack in prison.

Tea ended, and I saw the tramps looking furtively at

one another. An unspoken thought was running from

man to man-could we possibly make off before the

prayers started? Someone stirred in his chair-not getting

up actually, but with just a glance at the door, as though

half suggesting the idea of departure. The lady quelled

him with one look. She said in a more benign tone than

ever:

"I don't think you need go

quite yet. The casual ward

doesn't open till six, and we have time to kneel down and

say a few words to our Father first. I think we should all

feel better after that, shouldn't we?"

The red-nosed man was very helpful, pulling the

harmonium into place and handing out the prayerbooks.

His back was to the lady as he did this, and it was his

idea of a joke to deal the books like a pack of cards,

whispering to each men as he did so, "There y'are, mate,

there's a--- nap 'end for yer! Four aces and a king!" etc.

Bareheaded, we knelt down among the dirty teacups

and began to mumble that we had left undone those

things that we ought to have done, and done those things

that we ought not to have done, and there was no health

in us. The lady prayed very fervently, but her eyes roved

over us all the time, making sure that we were attending.

When she was not looking we grinned and winked at one

another, and whispered bawdy jokes, just to show that we did

not care; but it stuck in our throats a little. No one except

the rednosed man was self-possessed enough to speak the

responses above a whisper. We got on better with the singing,

except that one old tramp knew no tune but "Onward,

Christian soldiers," and reverted to it sometimes,

spoiling the harmony.

The prayers lasted half an hour, and then, after a

handshake at the door, we made off. "Well," said

somebody as soon as we were out of hearing, "the

trouble's over. I thought them ----prayers was never goin'

to end."

"You 'ad your bun," said another; "you got to pay for

it."

"Pray for it, you mean. Ah, you don't get much for

nothing. They can't even give you a twopenny cup of tea

without you go down on you -----knees for it."

There were murmurs of agreement. Evidently the

tramps were not grateful for their tea. And yet it was

excellent tea, as different from coffee-shop tea as good

Bordeaux is from the muck called colonial claret, and we

were all glad of it. I am sure too that it was given in a

good spirit, without any intention of humiliating us; so in

fairness we ought to have been grateful-still, we were

not.

XXVII

AT about a quarter to six the Irishman led me to the spike.

It was a grim, smoky yellow cube of brick, standing in a

corner of the workhouse grounds. With its rows of tiny,

barred windows, and a high wall and iron gates separating