Down and Out in London and Paris

by Orwell, George

To my eye these Salvation Army shelters, though clean,

  are far drearier than the worst of the common lodging-

  houses. There is such a hopelessness about some of the

  people there-decent, broken-down types who have pawned

  their collars but are still trying for office jobs.

  Coming to a Salvation Army shelter, where it is

  at least clean, is their last clutch at respectability. At the

  next table to me were two foreigners, dressed in rags

  but manifestly gentlemen. They were playing chess

  verbally, not even writing down the moves. One of them

  was blind, and I heard them say that they had been

  saving up for a long time to buy a board, price half a

  crown, but could never manage it. Here and there were

  clerks out of work, pallid and moody. Among a group of

  them a tall, thin, deadly pale young man was talking

  excitedly. He thumped his fist on the table and boasted

  in a strange, feverish style. When the officers were out

  of hearing he broke out into startling blasphemies

  "I tell you what, boys, I'm going to get that job to-

  morrow. I'm not one of your bloody down-on-the-knee

  brigade; I can look after myself. Look at that notice there!

  'The Lord will provide!' A bloody lot He's ever provided me

  with. You don't catch me trusting to the Lord. You

  leave it to me, boys. I'm going to get that job," etc. etc.

  I watched him, struck by the wild, agitated way in

  which he talked; he seemed hysterical, or perhaps a little

  drunk. An hour later I went into a small room, apart

  from the main hall, which was intended for reading. It

  had no books or papers in it, so few of the lodgers went

  there. As I opened the door I saw the young clerk in there

  all alone; he was on his knees, praying. Before I shut the

  door again I had time to see his face, and it looked

  agonised. Quite suddenly I realised, from the expression

  of his face, that he was starving.

  The charge for beds was eightpence. Paddy and I had

  fivepence left, and we spent it at the "bar," where food

  was cheap, though not so cheap as in some common

  lodging-houses. The tea appeared to be made

  with tea dust, which I fancy had been given to the

  Salvation Army in charity, though they sold it at three-

  halfpence a cup. It was foul stuff. At ten o'clock an

  officer marched round the hall blowing a whistle.

  Immediately everyone stood up.

  "What's this for?" I said to Paddy, astonished.

  "Dat means you has to go off to bed. An' you has to

  look sharp about it, too."

  Obediently as sheep, the whole two hundred men

  trooped off to bed, under the command of the officers.

  The dormitory was a great attic like a barrack room, with

  sixty or seventy beds in it. They were clean and tolerably

  comfortable, but very narrow and very close together, so

  that one breathed straight into one's neighbour's face.

  Two officers slept in the room, to see that there was no

  smoking and no talking after lights-out. Paddy and I had

  scarcely a wink of sleep, for there was a man near us

  who had some nervous trouble, shellshock perhaps,

  which made him cry out "Pip!" at irregular intervals. It

  was a loud, startling noise, something like the toot of a

  small motor-horn. You never knew when it was coming,

  and it was a sure preventer of sleep. It appeared that Pip,

  as the others called him, slept regularly in the shelter,

  and he must have kept ten or twenty people awake every

  night. He was an example of the kind of thing that

  prevents one from ever getting enough sleep when men

  are herded as they are in these lodging-houses.

  At seven another whistle blew, and the officers went

  round shaking those who did not get up at once. Since

  then I have slept in a number of Salvation Army

  shelters, and found that, though the different houses

  vary a little, this semi-military discipline is the same in

  all of them. They are certainly cheap, but they are too

  like workhouses for my taste. In some of them there is

  even a compulsory religious service once or twice a week,

  which the lodgers must attend or leave the house. The fact

  is that the Salvation Army are so in the habit of thinking

  themselves a charitable body that they cannot even run a

  lodging-house without making it stink of charity.

  At ten I went to B.'s office and asked him to lend me a

  pound. He gave me two pounds and told me to come again

  when necessary, so that Paddy and I were free of money

  troubles for a week at least. We loitered the day in

  Trafalgar Square, looking for a friend of Paddy's who

  never turned up, and at night went to a lodginghouse in a

  back alley near the Strand. The charge was elevenpence,

  but it was a dark, evil-smelling place, and a notorious

  haunt of the "nancy boys." Downstairs, in the murky

  kitchen, three ambiguous-looking youths in smartish blue

  suits were sitting on a bench apart, ignored by the other

  lodgers. I suppose they were "nancy boys." They looked

  the same type as the apache boys one sees in Paris, except

  that they wore no sidewhiskers. In front of the fire a fully

  dressed man and a stark-naked man were bargaining. They

  were newspaper sellers. The dressed man was selling his

  clothes to the naked man. He said:

  "'Ere y'are, the best rig-out you ever 'ad. A tosheroon

  [half a crown] for the coat, two 'ogs for the trousers, one

  and a tanner for the boots, and a 'og for the cap and scarf.

  That's seven bob."

  "You got a 'ope! I'll give yer one and a tanner for the

  coat, a 'og for the trousers, and two 'ogs for the rest.

  That's four and a tanner."

  "Take the 'ole lot for five and a tanner, chum."

  "Right y'are, off with 'em. I got to get out to sell my late

  edition."

  The clothed man stripped, and in three minutes their

  positions were reversed; the naked man dressed, and the

  other kilted with a sheet of the Daily Mail.

  The dormitory was dark and close, with fifteen beds in

  it. There was a horrible hot reek of urine, so beastly that at

  first one tried to breathe in small, shallow puffs, not filling

  one's lungs to the bottom. As I lay down in bed a man

  loomed out of the darkness, leant over me and began

  babbling in an educated, half-drunken voice:

  "An old public school boy, what? [He had heard me

  say something to Paddy.] Don't meet many of the old

  school here. I am an old Etonian. You know-twenty years

  hence this weather and all that." He began to quaver out

  the Eton boating-song, not untunefully:

  "Jolly boating weather,

  And a hay harvest---"

  "Stop that---- noise!" shouted several lodgers.

  "Low types," said the old Etonian, "very low types. Funny

  sort of place for you and me, eh? Do you know what my

  friends say to me? They say, 'M-, you are past

  redemption.' Quite true, I am past redemption.

  I've come down in the world; not like these----- s here,

>   who couldn't come down if they tried. We chaps who

  have come down ought to hang together a bit. Youth will

  be still in our faces-you know. May I offer you a drink?"

  He produced a bottle of cherry brandy, and at the same

  moment lost his balance and fell heavily across my legs.

  Paddy, who was undressing, pulled him upright.

  "Get back to yer bed, you silly ole----- !"

  The old Etonian walked unsteadily to his bed and

  crawled under the sheets with all his clothes on, even his

  boots. Several times in the night I heard him murmuring,

  "M-, you are past redemption," as though the phrase

  appealed to him. In the morning he was

  lying asleep fully dressed, with the bottle clasped in his

  arms. He was a man of about fifty, with a refined, worn

  face, and, curiously enough, quite fashionably dressed. It

  was queer to see his good patent-leather shoes sticking out

  of that filthy bed. It occurred to me, too, that the cherry

  brandy must have cost the equivalent of a fortnight's

  lodging, so he could not have been seriously hard up.

  Perhaps he frequented common lodginghouses in search of

  the "nancy boys."

  The beds were not more than two feet apart. About

  midnight I woke up to find that the man next to me was

  trying to steal the money from beneath my pillow. He was

  pretending to be asleep while he did it, sliding his hand

  under the pillow as gently as a rat. In the morning I saw

  that he was a hunchback, with long, apelike arms. I told

  Paddy about the attempted theft. He laughed and said:

  "Christ! You got to get used to dat. Dese lodgin'

  houses is full o' thieves. In some houses dere's notlain'

  safe but to sleep wid all yer clo'es on. I seen 'em steal a

  wooden leg off a cripple before now. Once I see a man-

  fourteen stone man he was-come into a lodgin'-house wid

  four pound ten. He puts it under his mattress. 'Now,' he

  says, 'any dat touches dat money does it over my body,'

  he says. But dey done him all de same. In de mornin' he

  woke up on de floor. Four fellers had took his mattress by

  de corners an' lifted him off as light as a feather. He never

  saw his four pound ten again."

  XXX

  THE next morning we began looking once more for

  Paddy's friend, who was called Bozo, and was a screever-

  that is, a pavement artist. Addresses did

  not exist in Paddy's world, but he had a vague idea that

  Bozo might be found in Lambeth, and in the end we ran

  across him on the Embankment, where he had established

  himself not far from Waterloo Bridge. He was kneeling on

  the pavement with a box of chalks, copying a sketch of

  Winston Churchill from a penny note-book. The likeness

  was not at all bad. Bozo was a small, dark, hook-nosed

  man, with curly hair growing low on his head. His right

  leg was dreadfully deformed, the foot being twisted heel

  forward in a way horrible to see. From his appearance one

  could have taken him for a Jew, but he used to deny this

  vigorously. He spoke of his hook-nose as "Roman," and

  was proud of his resemblance to some Roman Emperor-it

  was Vespasian, I think.

  Bozo had a strange way of talking, Cockneyfied and

  yet very lucid and expressive. It was as though he had

  read good books but had never troubled to correct his

  grammar. For a while Paddy and I stayed on the

  Embankment, talking, and Bozo gave us an account of the

  screeving trade. I repeat what he said more or less in his

  own words.

  "I'm what they call a serious screever. I don't draw in

  blackboard chalks like these others, I use proper colours

  the same as what painters use; bloody expensive they are,

  especially the reds. I use five bobs' worth of colours in a

  long day, and never less than two bobs' worth.' Cartoons

  is my line-you know, politics and cricket and that. Look

  here"-he showed me his notebook-"here's likenesses of all

  the political blokes, what I've copied from the papers. I

  have a different cartoon every day. For instance, when the

  Budget was on I had one of Winston trying to push an

  elephant

  1 Pavement artists buy their colours in the form of powder,

  and work them into cakes with condensed milk.

  marked 'Debt,' and underneath I wrote, 'Will he budge

  it?' See? You can have cartoons about any of the parties,

  but you mustn't put anything in favour of Socialism,

  because the police won't stand it. Once I did a cartoon of

  a boa constrictor marked Capital swallowing a rabbit

  marked Labour. The copper came along and saw it, and

  he says, 'You rub that out, and look sharp about it,' he

  says. I had to rub it out. The copper's got the right to

  move you on for loitering, and it's no good giving them a

  back answer."

  I asked Bozo what one could earn at screeving. He

  said:

  "This time of year, when it don't rain, I take about three

  quid between Friday and Sunday-people get their wages

  Fridays, you see. I can't work when it rains; the colours

  get washed off straight away. Take the year round, I make

  about a pound a week, because you can't do much in the

  winter. Boat Race day, and Cup Final day, I've took as

  much as four pounds. But you have to cut it out of them,

  you know; you don't take a bob if you just sit and look at

  them. A halfpenny's the usual drop [gift], and you don't

  get even that unless you give them a bit of backchat.

  Once they've answered you they feel ashamed not to give

  you a drop. The best thing's to keep changing your

  picture, because when they see you drawing they'll stop

  and watch you. The trouble is, the beggars scatter as soon

  as you turn round with the hat. You really want a nobber

  [assistant] at this game. You keep at work and get a crowd

  watching you, and the nobber comes casual-like round the

  back of them. They don't know he's the nobber. Then

  suddenly he pulls his cap off, and you got them between

  two fires like. You'll never get a drop off real toffs. It's

  shabby sort of blokes you get most off, and foreigners.

  I've had even sixpences off Japs, and blackies, and that.

  They're not so bloody mean as what an Englishman is.

  Another thing to remember is to keep your money

  covered up, except perhaps a penny in the hat. People

  won't give you anything if they see you got a bob or two

  already."

  Bozo had the deepest contempt for the other screevves

  on the Embankment. He called them "the salmon

  platers." At that time there was a screever almost every

  twenty-five yards along the Embankmenttwenty-five

  yards being the recognised minimum between pitches.

  Bozo contemptuously pointed out an old white-bearded

  screever fifty yards away.

  "You see that silly old fool? He's bin doing the same

  picture every day for ten years. 'A faithful friend' he calls

  it. It's of a dog pulling a child out of the water. The silly

  old bastard can't draw any bette
r than a child of ten. He's

  learned just that one picture by rule of thumb, like you

  learn to put a puzzle together. There's a lot of that sort

  about here. They come pinching my ideas sometimes; but

  I don't care; the silly s can't think of anything for

  themselves, so I'm always ahead of them. The whole

  thing with cartoons is being up to date. Once a child got

  its head stuck in the railings of Chelsea Bridge. Well, I

  heard about it, and my cartoon was on the pavement

  before they'd got the child's head out of the railings.

  Prompt, I am."

  Bozo seemed an interesting man, and I was anxious to see

  more of him. That evening I went down to the

  Embankment to meet him, as he had arranged to take

  Paddy and myself to a lodging-house south of the river.

  Bozo washed his pictures off the pavement and counted

  his takings-it was about sixteen shillings, of which he said

  twelve or thirteen would be profit. We

  walked down into Lambeth. Bozo limped slowly, with a

  queer crablike gait, half sideways, dragging his smashed

  foot behind him. He carried a stick in each hand and slung

  his box of colours over his shoulder. As we were crossing

  the bridge he stopped in one of the alcoves to rest. He fell

  silent for a minute or two, and to my surprise I saw that he

  was looking at the stars. He touched my arm and pointed

  to the sky with his stick.

  "Say, will you look at Aldebaran! Look at the colour.

  Like a ------------ great blood orange!"

  From the way he spoke he might have been an art critic

  in a picture gallery. I was astonished. I confessed that I

  did not know which Aldebaran was, indeed, I had never

  even noticed that the stars were of different colours. Bozo

  began to give me some elementary hints on astronomy,

  pointing out the chief constellations. He seemed

  concerned at my ignorance. I said to him, surprised:

  "You seem to know a lot about stars."

  "Not a great lot. I know a bit, though. I got two letters

  from the Astronomer Royal thanking me for writing about

  meteors. Now and again I go out at night and watch for

  meteors. The stars are a free show; it don't cost anything

  to use your eyes."

  "What a good idea! I should never have thought of it."

  "Well, you got to take an interest in something. It don't

  follow that because a man's on the road he can't think of