In Darkest London

I

“I Walked with Other Souls in Pain …”

London is a city of sudden and violent contrasts. You can step from comfort and security of existence into destitution within a few minutes. This sounds incredible; but it can be done as I have proved. I wanted to find out how the woman without a home, without a reference, without money, friends or a decent wardrobe, supports life. Well, I did find out, and what I have learned has impressed itself upon my mind with a rigidity that time itself cannot reduce. …

I left my home one evening in February. I wore my own clothes, which were shabby, but not ragged. I had watertight shoes and a raincoat—and not one penny in my pocket. I had determined to start life from an entirely new angle. I would arrive in London with nothing but my personality between me and starvation. To do this I went to Euston, and mingled with the crowd of passengers on the 9:20 arriving from Liverpool.

It was an odd sensation to be derelict in a crowd without one familiar association. Everybody seemed to have a friend to meet, and I pictured the sort of homes that they were going to. I had never troubled about this before when I arrived at a terminus, I was always too engrossed with my own personal affairs. But when the crowd cleared off and I found myself left solitary on the platform, the first stirring of that loneliness I was later on to fathom to the full, made itself felt in me. It was one of the bitterest nights of a very cold winter, and the wind cut the skin like the lash of a whip. I pulled myself together and went right up to a policeman.

I have always admired the London police, but I never realised before that they were so tall. I was very conscious of my destitute condition, and I looked up at him wistfully, and a little afraid.