第28章

I got.And, like the old woman, I continued to get; for every time Idozed, a policeman was there to rout me along again.Not long after, when I had given this up, I was walking with a young Londoner (who had been out to the colonies and wished he were out to them again), when Inoticed an open passage leading under a building and disappearing in darkness.A low iron gate barred the entrance.

'Come on,' I said.'Let's climb over and get a good sleep.'

'Wot?' he answered, recoiling from me.'An' get run in fer three months! Blimey if I do!'

Later on, I was passing Hyde Park with a young boy of fourteen or fifteen, a most wretched-looking youth, gaunt and hollow-eyed and sick.

'Let's go over the fence,' I proposed, 'and crawl into the shrubbery for a sleep.The bobbies couldn't find us there.'

'No fear,' he answered.'There's the park guardians, and they'd run you in for six months.'

Times have changed, alas! When I was a youngster I used to read of homeless boys sleeping in doorways.Already the thing has become a tradition.As a stock situation it will doubtlessly linger in literature for a century to come, but as a cold fact it has ceased to be.Here are the doorways, and here are the boys, but happy conjunctions are no longer effected.The doorways remain empty, and the boys keep awake and carry the banner.

'I was down under the arches,' grumbled another young fellow.By 'arches' he meant the shore arches where begin the bridges that span the Thames.'I was down under the arches, w'en it was ryning its 'ardest, an' a bobby comes in an' chyses me out.But I come back, an' 'e come too."'Ere" sez 'e, "wot you doin' 'ere?" An' out Igoes, but I sez, "Think I want ter pinch [steal] the bleedin'

bridge?"'

Among those who carry the banner, Green Park has the reputation of opening its gates earlier than the other parks, and at quarter-past four in the morning, I, and many more, entered Green Park.It was raining again, but they were worn out with the night's walking, and they were down on the benches and asleep at once.Many of the men stretched out full length on the dripping wet grass, and, with the rain falling steadily upon them, were sleeping the sleep of exhaustion.

And now I wish to criticize the powers that be.They are the powers, therefore they may decree whatever they please; so I make bold only to criticize the ridiculousness of their decrees.All night long they make the homeless ones walk up and down.They drive them out of doors and passages, and lock them out of the parks.The evident intention of all this is to deprive them of sleep.Well and good, the powers have the power to deprive them of sleep, or of anything else for that matter; but why under the sun do they open the gates of the parks at five o'clock in the morning and let the homeless ones go inside and sleep? If it is their intention to deprive them of sleep, why do they let them sleep after five in the morning? And if it is not their intention to deprive them of sleep, why don't they let them sleep earlier in the night?

In this connection, I will say that I came by Green Park that same day, at one in the afternoon, and that I counted scores of the ragged wretches asleep in the grass.It was Sunday afternoon, the sun was fitfully appearing, and the well-dressed West Enders, with their wives and progeny, were out by thousands, taking the air.It was not a pleasant sight for them, those horrible, unkempt, sleeping vagabonds; while the vagabonds themselves, I know, would rather have done their sleeping the night before.

And so, dear soft people, should you ever visit London Town, and see these men asleep on the benches and in the grass, please do not think they are lazy creatures, preferring sleep to work.Know that the powers that be have kept them walking all the night long, and that in the day they have nowhere else to sleep.