GEORGE MEEK 
 BATH CHAIR-MAN
 
 GEORGE MEEK 
 
 BATH CHAIR-MAN 
 
 BY HIMSELF 
 
 WITH AN INTRODUCTION 
 
 BY 
 
 H. G. WELLS 
 
 NEW YORK 
 
 E; P * DUTTON &> COMPANY 
 31 West Twenty-Third Street 
 
 1910
 
 COPYRIGHT, 1910 
 
 BY 
 
 E. P. BUTTON & COMPANY
 
 SONG OF THE CHAIR-MEN 
 
 WE do not live, we only starve and linger ; 
 
 We do not hope, we only drift along ; 
 We have no faith, the years have made us faith-less ; 
 
 Come ! listen to the chair-men's feeble song. 
 
 We have no grip on life all things pervading, 
 We have no cheer but what to-day may bring ; 
 
 There is no love for those who walk in darkness, 
 O ! listen while the trailing chair-men sing. 
 
 God send us help, or else there is no saviour ; 
 
 God send us hope, or else we die in pain; 
 God send us light, or else we blindly falter; 
 
 God send us quickly back to sleep again. 
 
 Blindly we strive, the vultures gather round us, 
 Weakly we seek to arm ourselves and stand ; 
 
 We may not fly; there is no welcome waiting 
 For such as us in all this teeming land. 
 
 We would be men, and do men's work untiring ; 
 
 We would be free, and never know a care ; 
 We would be strong, and give for what life giveth, 
 
 But Hope lies wounded, dying everywhere. 
 
 We would achieve, would quarry stones or build them ; 
 
 We 've but our manhood left to us to save. 
 Oh ! Land of England ! is there none to help us ? 
 
 Is life just this and presently the grave? 
 
 GEORGE MEEK.
 
 FOREWORD 
 TO THE AMERICAN EDITION 
 
 WITH the possible exception of Atlantic City, the 
 coast towns of the United States do not possess a 
 class corresponding to the English bathchair-man ; 
 and even between the Atlantic City chair-roller 
 and his British prototype there is a difference far 
 greater than that of mere locality. 
 
 To any observer but the ignorant or the senti- 
 mentally optimistic (possibly a subdivision of the 
 same species), these bathchair-men of the English 
 seaside resorts, with their bent backs and lack- 
 lustre eyes, wearily hauling some sour-faced malade 
 imaginaire or some white-haired physical wreck 
 along the sea-front Parade or Esplanade, as the 
 case may be or idling passively in the dingy 
 chair-rank as they wait for the advent of a 
 chance customer, present food for sad and some- 
 what threatening reflection. 
 
 First and foremost, the bathchair-man any 
 bathchair-man is a self-confessed failure. No 
 man becomes a beast of traction with entire will- 
 ingness or with the idea of making that state a 
 step to something more lofty. You see no young 
 bathchair-men. Bathchair dragging is something 
 
 vii
 
 viii FOREWORD 
 
 to which men fall not from which they rise; for 
 it is an occupation that exercises none of the 
 distinctively human capacities, affords no incen- 
 tive to hope, no scope for intelligence and no 
 opportunity for responsibility. There is, in fact, 
 nothing in the work that an animal could not do 
 and do better, but the man is cheaper. 
 
 Secondly, and perhaps of deeper significance, 
 is the fact that the bathchair-man by his very 
 existence convicts society itself of failure; for in 
 what well or even sanely ordered community 
 would a class such as this be permitted to arise 
 and perpetuate itself? 
 
 Society has produced the bathchair-man. Very 
 well, society stands responsible for him, and 
 will have to find out what to do with him as 
 with the other people of the Abyss and that 
 soon; for from this grey, tattered and disrepu- 
 table company has at last come a clear and in- 
 telligible voice, the disinherited have found a 
 spokesman, and we discover, with whatever 
 surprise, distaste or indignation the idea may 
 affect us, that, after all, the waste-product of 
 society thinks itself as much as the very best 
 of us entitled to "life, liberty and the pursuit 
 of happiness"; and not only that, but is capable 
 of a very obvious and natural hatred and resent- 
 ment towards the people or institutions who 
 seem to stand in the way of those desirable things.
 
 FOREWORD ix 
 
 Now, what of this man who has found within 
 himself the will and the equipment to tell such a 
 story as there is in this volume? 
 
 I think the thing that will strike the reader first 
 and most continuously is Mr. Meek's extraordinary 
 inefficiency in all the practical activities of life. 
 
 Handicapped by partial blindness and physical 
 weakness, a limited education, a disordered and 
 squalid childhood, lack of instruction in any money- 
 earning employment, his life-story as here revealed 
 is one long and monotonously regular record of his 
 dismissals from every employment which he 
 managed to secure. 
 
 As he himself pathetically says (Chapter xvn), 
 "always someone else has wanted the work and 
 edged me out of it" which, seeing the immense 
 advantage the man who holds the job naturally 
 has over the man who wants it, serves as a lumin- 
 ous, if unintentional, commentary on his own lack 
 of grip and capacity. 
 
 As baker's errand-boy, boot-black, hop-picker, 
 furniture mover, sawyer, canvasser, groom, club 
 waiter, collector, prospective Baptist preacher, 
 and socialist organizer, he achieved invariable 
 failure, and had in every case to retire in favour 
 of some stronger or less particular competitor. 
 
 And yet as Mr. H. G. Wells points out so 
 forcibly in his Introduction Mr. Meek is obviously 
 no ordinary man. In fact, he is a most astonish- 
 ing one in many ways. Having no occupation,
 
 x FOREWORD 
 
 no vested interests, no stake in the country, as 
 one might say to worry over, nothing attracts 
 him more than the responsibilities of the nation, 
 and he becomes an ardent politician. Having 
 only a bare common-school education he begs and 
 borrows weighty books, and takes upon himself 
 to criticize Shakespeare, fearlessly asking what 
 on earth people see in him and casually alleging 
 his own preference for Homer. Housed in the 
 lowest slums, in an insect-ridden stratum of 
 society, where it is not an unusual thing for the 
 husband to send his wife upon the streets in order to 
 subsist idle on her earnings, he yet projects a work 
 on Ethics and confesses to an avid love of life. 
 
 Truly, this is an incurable idealist, exhibiting on 
 every page of a narrative of sordid and abortive 
 existence the magnificent fact that hunger and 
 thirst cannot kill hope, and that even despair is not 
 strong enough to silence the soul. 
 
 An amazing man! an amazing book! In- 
 domitable spiritual courage to command one's 
 admiration and envy; mean, unclean and de- 
 grading years to call for one's pity or one 's scorn, 
 and, throughout, an actuality, an absence of pose 
 or attempt for "atmosphere," and an almost 
 inhuman carelessness in the writer about the 
 verdict of the reader. Nothing held back, nothing 
 exaggerated or glorified, no plea made, no moral 
 drawn. Simply a life history without conventional 
 reticences and without conventional vulgarities.
 
 FOREWORD xi 
 
 "Life is filthy with sentimental lying," says 
 Mr. Wells, and here in this book at any rate the 
 humanist, the philanthropist, the sociologist, or 
 the mere inquisitive "man in the street" may 
 see, as under a microscope, the heart, mind and 
 soul of a human being a life lived according to 
 necessity, without concession to the ideals of the 
 Sunday-school superintendent or to the theories 
 of the sentimental Utopian. 
 
 The truth of the story, its simplicity, are, re- 
 spectively, its excuse for being and its claim to 
 greatness. 
 
 Now, it may well be asked what has America to 
 do with Mr. Meek, or Mr. Meek with America? 
 
 The answer to such a question is not very far to 
 seek. 
 
 Meek and his fellows are products of European 
 civilization. American life itself is a child of that 
 same civilization, and the weakness and diseases 
 of a parent have a most unpleasant tendency to 
 reappear in the offspring. 
 
 If England produces these socially incompetent 
 Meeks in hundreds now, America will be produc- 
 ing them in thousands later, when the private 
 ownership of natural resources, together with the 
 prescriptive evolution of social and financial in- 
 equalities in a more congested society, shall have 
 brought about in this country conditions com- 
 parable with those of the present day in Europe. 
 
 Men who are incapable yet thoughtful, destitute
 
 xii FOREWORD 
 
 but not degraded, men who have nothing to lose 
 and everything to gain by the overturn of existing 
 conditions, these men are a menace to any and 
 every form of social organization. 
 
 This book shows how Meeks are bred; and 
 since knowing the cause of a disease is half-way 
 to discovering its cure it should go far towards 
 suggesting how the breeding of them may be 
 avoided. 
 
 And, if this book contains a lesson for America, 
 it may contain also an inspiration. 
 
 Apart from the example of splendid and per- 
 sistent moral courage which it affords, there can 
 be clearly realized, from the references scattered 
 throughout its pages, the ideal which, a quarter of 
 a century ago, the Union offered to the poor of 
 Europe. 
 
 A land of peace and plenty, a kindly country 
 in which the man who had failed could get yet 
 one more chance, and where he who was willing 
 to work would not see his children lacking bread, 
 nor his wife without a roof to cover her : this was 
 what America stood for. 
 
 How far this conception of the United States 
 was then justified in fact, or to what extent such an 
 idea of the country prevails over-seas to-day, would 
 doubtless be matters difficult of precise statement ; 
 but it seems to me that a people can easily earn 
 a more undesirable reputation than this, and that 
 to be regarded as the natural refuge of the hungry
 
 FOREWORD xiii 
 
 and oppressed, as the land of opportunity and 
 the cradle of the future, is far from being the 
 lowest or least noble destiny to which a nation 
 can be called. 
 
 At any rate, if America is to fulfil this ideal, 
 there is no doubt that she must discover what is 
 to be done to prevent arising here also that haunt- 
 ing, that persistent, that abominably ominous 
 question, " What are we to do with our Meeks?" 
 
 MOREBY ACKLOM.
 
 INTRODUCTION 
 
 THERE are people who will not like this book, 
 just as there are people who will not like its 
 writer. As the little boys say, "Let 'em!" I 
 am a Meek-ite, and know there will soon be other 
 Meek-ites in the world. For them the book is 
 published. Mr. Meek is at once a very typical 
 and a very extraordinary man; he stands for 
 an immense class in the modern community, and 
 he is extraordinary in being able to reveal almost 
 everything he stands for. The reader of books 
 who is also a lover of life will know what I mean. 
 Many thousands of men now-a-days, in every class, 
 trail pens and leave a thread of ink behind them, 
 but it is only here and there that that trail gathers 
 itself together and lives. Mr. Meek does all sorts 
 of dreadful things at times with that pen there 
 are pages in this book where he will shock 
 even the despicable grammarian but he writes. 
 Reality is here, told with a frankness that marks 
 the elect. There are no vulgarities of the would- 
 be tactful or would-be genteel, and amazingly 
 few affectations about Mr. Meek. Considering 
 
 XV
 
 xvi INTRODUCTION 
 
 all his circumstances this is, I think, amazing. 
 There is at moments, beyond all question, the 
 stark simplicity of literary greatness about him. 
 A year ago it is with real pride I add at my 
 suggestion he set himself to put himself upon 
 paper, and here he is self-portrayed with quite 
 remarkable success. 
 
 I first made Mr. Meek's acquaintance through 
 the post. I do not distinctly remember when he 
 emerged from that welter of generally trouble- 
 some correspondence with strangers that is an 
 unavoidable part of an author's life. But I 
 remember I had marked him as a rather queer 
 and interesting correspondent before I realized 
 just what his position in the world might be. 
 I involved myself some years ago in the internal 
 politics of the Socialist movement, and it was in 
 a sort of loose connection with this that he had 
 his beginnings. He burned with a passion for 
 "Socialist Unity" a thing as probable in this 
 world as theological unanimity and then I fancy 
 he became personal and self-explanatory. I re- 
 member very distinctly that he produced literary 
 projects of an utterly impossible sort. There 
 was to be a book on Ethics, that difficult sub- 
 ject, and a romantic story of scientific progress. 
 I was no doubt discouraging, but whether civilly 
 or not I have now no means of ascertaining; 
 usually I am uncivil when I find people who 
 evidently have no special scientific or sociological
 
 INTRODUCTION xvii 
 
 knowledge propose such undertakings, under- 
 takings simple enough in their way, but still 
 demanding at least that much equipment. And 
 perhaps it was then that I said: "Why, instead 
 of writing about things upon which you are 
 necessarily ignorant, don't you realize that the 
 only thing anybody has any right to produce 
 books about is a personal vision of life? You 
 must know no end of things, and have felt no 
 end of things I, as a writer, would give my left 
 hand for. Try and set them down." 
 
 That was a request I repeated much more 
 urgently after I had met Mr. Meek. He came 
 to me in the sunshine at bank-holiday time, 
 and I did not see him so closely as I would have 
 liked, because by some accident another visitor, 
 also claiming attention strongly, happened to 
 coincide with his call. Mr. Meek is so frank an 
 artist, he has all the shamelessness of the wise, 
 that I will not hesitate to tell him that his appear- 
 ance shocked and interested me profoundly. He 
 was dressed in ill-fitting black clothes, very- 
 dusty with the journey he had made that day, 
 he was awkward in his movements, and there is 
 something in his eyes I do not know what a 
 specialist would call it a discolouration of the 
 whites and a peculiarity of shape that suggests 
 the eye of the blind. One eye, I learn from this 
 book, for the first time, is blind. He peers, 
 walks ill, and does not speak very distinctly.
 
 xviii INTRODUCTION 
 
 He behaved as the theoretical gentleman be- 
 haves, and as no conscious gentleman ever did 
 behave; he neither cringed nor was abashed, 
 self-assertive or gross. He displayed neither 
 abjection nor conceit. He talked simply, as for 
 the most part he writes, about things he under- 
 stood. He was very full of "Socialist Unity." 
 You will find in his twenty-seventh chapter an 
 account of this largely pedestrian tour in which 
 he visited me. It is the record of the obscurest 
 of men engaged in the oddest futility, and at the 
 same time it is the record of a profoundly touch- 
 ing dream. Think of the figure of him trudging 
 along the road, with cyclists and motor-cars 
 flying by in the bank-holiday season's rush 
 for pleasure. Meek went to Ashford and met 
 quite several men in a tiny room. He tells 
 how good they were; he came to Folkestone, 
 missing the two or three Hythe stalwarts; he 
 lunched with me after encountering a veteran 
 of the Socialist dawn in Folkestone, and so went 
 on to Dover, where he also found a small knot 
 of men. He is sympathetic but critical. His 
 mission, I say, was a dream. He was pleading 
 to the miscellaneous to be uniform and to the 
 inquiring and experimental to be unanimous, 
 in order that the Kingdom of Heaven might 
 forthwith arrive. After reading this book you will 
 better understand his impatience. He visited us 
 all as I fancy the apostles must have visited the
 
 INTRODUCTION xix 
 
 germinating churches, with clouds of glorious 
 vision in his mind. What did all the weary miles 
 of people in between us matter? What did all 
 the institutions and traditions, the prosperity 
 and substance that made up the world about us, 
 signify to us? Did not we, living in the light 
 of Marx, know the hour was ripe for all these 
 things to pass? They would presently roll back 
 like a curtain, and show the stage new-set for a 
 universal harmony and virtue under the Worker's 
 rule. He was almost serene in spite of his fatigues. 
 We sat in my garden after lunch and smoked and 
 looked out over the sunlit sea and talked of the 
 millennium. (You and I, Meek, will have to be 
 dead a long time and much in our blood and our 
 strain dead for ever, I fear, before there is any 
 millennium.) At last he declared he had to get 
 on; he gave me a peculiar, mysterious handgrip 
 at parting (I wonder if there are secret societies 
 all unsuspect beneath respectable feet to-day), 
 and so went on into the world, a dusty, black, 
 receding figure, full, I declare, in his peculiar 
 quality, of the spirit of God. 
 
 His mission came to nothing tangible. The 
 reader will see that it was but an episode in his 
 life. Yet it was no passing whim that set him 
 afoot upon the roads, but a dream that has 
 touched every one of us who matters now-a- 
 days, and which must needs become more and more 
 significant in human lives as humanity develops.
 
 xx INTRODUCTION 
 
 "Come," says the dream, "this earth is not 
 good enough yet. It is full of stupidities and 
 cruelties, compulsions and hardships. Up and 
 change it, change as much of it as your strength 
 permits." Our answers are absurdly inadequate. 
 Meek goes his pilgrimage through Kent and a 
 part of Sussex, others of us mumble inaudible 
 lectures or hesitate valiant opinions through a 
 book or so. Others again form committees and 
 lose their heads and quarrel with their colleagues. 
 The oddest, most questionable offerings lie before 
 the altar of that dream. It is n't so much a tale 
 of widows' mites as of odd, worn stockings honestly 
 offered, or the ribs of an old umbrella proffered 
 with pride and devotion. . . . 
 
 But my business now is not with the dream of 
 Socialism and a millennial world, but with the 
 literary value of Mr. Meek. So far as this book 
 goes, I put him high among the writers of our 
 time. But then I am a heretic in these things, 
 rather careless of style and elegance, and over- 
 curious, it may be, about life. I want nothing 
 so much as to know how people feel, to get to the 
 red living thing beneath what they have learnt 
 and beneath their instinctive defences. I hate all 
 idealization and all the concealments of idealiza- 
 tion. Life is filthy with sentimental lying. I 
 write in a time when that sincere and penetrating 
 treatment of emotion I desire is fought against 
 and suppressed, when the artist is bidden aban-
 
 INTRODUCTION xxi 
 
 don his attempts to mirror life, and go make 
 beautiful pasteboard masks for the vanity of dull- 
 ness and the discretions of the timid. Every man 
 who would tell of reality does it at his personal 
 cost amidst a chorus of abuse. I suppose to the 
 very end of things, the writer who matters must 
 take as his endorsement and burthen the hysteri- 
 cal cruelty and injustice of the shocked and the 
 virulently-inflicted injuries of the honestly in- 
 dignant. "In other words," as Crumpher used to 
 say, I have my doubts if the new censorship 
 of the libraries, which is to do so great a work in 
 protecting the British home from the incon- 
 venience of ideas, will tolerate Mr. Meek. No 
 there is that lapse into gaiety of his "Other 
 Loves," and "On Going to the Devil," and the 
 scandalous defence of beer-drinking. It will be 
 too much! 
 
 It is interesting, with this real bathchair- 
 man's life before us, to speculate about the sort 
 of bathchair-man's autobiography that would 
 be tolerated. It would be written, of course, 
 by some clever woman accustomed to district 
 visiting. Its hero must have none of the pain- 
 ful irregularities of origin to which Mr. Meek 
 confesses, and his appalling cynicisms about 
 the clergy and boys' brigades would be replaced 
 by a manly confidence in these agencies for 
 good. He would struggle in early life to support 
 his widowed mother, and the physical incapacities
 
 xxii INTRODUCTION 
 
 which made him a chair-propeller would be caused 
 in an heroic effort to save the favourite dog of 
 some reader of the Spectator from a fire. The 
 chair attained, he would become the respectful 
 admirer, the occasional involuntary eavesdropper 
 of its occupants. He would conceive a mute and 
 altogether touching adoration for a beautiful 
 invalid girl, his customer, which would flash into 
 generous sympathy when her handsome and 
 perfectly correct lover kept at arm's length, alas! 
 by the girl's irrevocable promise made carelessly 
 to a maiden aunt appeared. The bulk of the 
 book would develop their restrained and altogether 
 commendable passion the young man would go 
 away to a war, and get injured in some manner 
 consonant with the dictates of good taste and 
 the closing scenes would give us the marriage, 
 the maiden aunt having not only released the girl 
 from her promise, but foreshadowed a legacy. 
 Perhaps even the story might go on for there is 
 a kind of boldness possible now-a-days even in 
 desirable novels in the bathchair-man saying 
 that only yesterday he was privileged to see from 
 a respectful distance his dear young lady's baby 
 "and a beautiful baby it was." Such a book is 
 calculated to strengthen the mind of the imperial 
 citizen and intensify understanding between class 
 and class. 
 
 But how different and disorganizing is Mr. 
 Meek! He not only declines to act as chorus to
 
 INTRODUCTION- xxiii 
 
 his customers, but he is almost brutally indiffer- 
 ent to their important concerns. Instead, he tells 
 of concerns of his own. In place of the respectful 
 sentimentalities becoming in one in his position, 
 he adventures upon squalid eroticisms as Mr. 
 St. Loe Strachey might say on his own private 
 and personal account. He refuses absolutely 
 to be aware of those admirable Letters to a Working 
 Man, at once manly and persuasive in tone, 
 grammatical in construction, and interesting in 
 matter, with which the editor of the Spectator 
 wrought little short of a revolution in proletarian 
 thought. So far as Mr. Meek's incursion into 
 literary and sociological criticism goes, such 
 valuable specimens of contemporary mentality 
 might never have been written. His attempts 
 to form a chair-man's union flew in the face of the 
 most venerable laws of political economy, and 
 were to give them no worse a condemnation 
 highly disrespectful to everything a prosperous 
 Englishman holds dear. . . . 
 
 I do but jest when I write of these conspiracies 
 of moribund minds obliterating Mr. Meek. He 
 has produced a living work that will defy the 
 embargo of Mr. Mudie and all the libraries. 
 How living it is! Could anything be more 
 touching than the hunger for life, and the zest 
 in life, confessed in this poor, halting body? 
 Here is a voice, unmusical perhaps, and half 
 choked by the grime and disorder from which
 
 xxiv INTRODUCTION 
 
 it speaks, yet proclaiming the inexhaustible 
 interest of existence. It is impossible to read the 
 book and doubt that Mr. Meek has found life 
 richly worth the living. In that acceptance, and 
 the simplicity that arises out of it, lie his claim 
 to a place in the republic of literature. He soars 
 above the common herd by virtue of his shame- 
 lessness. The common man will not have life at 
 any price. He must dress it, hide it, evade it, 
 stop his ears to it, and scream and shriek. The 
 common man humbugs himself, humbugs every 
 one, goes through his allotted span a timidity 
 and a pretence to fulfil the mysterious purposes 
 of God unknowingly. But Mr. Meek can tell, 
 unaffectedly and finely, such a story as his love 
 for Ruth, or that cruel moment when he presents 
 himself before his American cousin. Those two 
 passages took me by the throat. I want no 
 made-up stories while I can read things like that. 
 He has no vulgar eagerness to forget these things. 
 He tells his bitter humiliation and prevails over 
 it. 
 
 His style seems to me extraordinarily clear and 
 simple; he has a curious knack of giving detail 
 that fixes his pictures. If he lapses into such a 
 vulgarity as to write about a "number nine 
 smile," it 's a mere momentary slip into the 
 dialect of his habitual reading. Like all real 
 living things, he 's better than his food. . . . 
 
 It chanced that a friend of Mr. Meek's re-
 
 INTRODUCTION x*v 
 
 ceived the MS. as he packed for a week-end at 
 a great country house, and this story got itself 
 oddly intercalated with the talk and presence 
 of viceroys and ministers and great ladies. It 
 was a queer experience to finish one's dressing, 
 tie one's tie, adjust the fine carnation which it 
 is the pleasant custom of that house to impose, 
 and sit down very bright and clean in a chintz- 
 covered chair before the fire to snatch ten minutes 
 of Meek before dinner. It set a curious under- 
 tone going in one's thoughts. One talked of 
 this and that, was served by dexterous butlers 
 and footmen, admired the silver and flowers of 
 the splendid table, and there in the shadows was 
 Meek Meek with as fine an appetite as any of 
 us, as capable, for all his want of training, of 
 as subtle appreciations, Meek like a frog in the 
 dustbin. Meek hovered all next day, a shimmer 
 in the sunshine, a darkness under the trees. It 
 was impossible to avoid comparison. Meek 
 would have made a very passable, and perhaps 
 quite unusually expressive, peer. I think he is 
 nobler than most peers but I write in the heat 
 of a feverish election. His friend found his sleep 
 disturbed at night by the riddle, "What are we 
 to do with our Meeks?" He tried it, he says, 
 upon a duchess and a viceroy and a party whip. 
 The problem played about the Sunday's dinner- 
 table, but got no hint of a solution. 
 
 "What to do with our Meeks?" I find creep-
 
 xxvi INTRODUCTION 
 
 ing into the revised proofs of this book, a rather 
 touching belief on our author's part that those 
 excellent and energetic people who are now 
 setting out to "Break up the Poor Law," will 
 make things mysteriously better for Meek and his 
 kind. There is going to be a wonderful new or- 
 ganization, devised with obscure assistance by Mr. 
 and Mrs. Sidney Webb, that will "do everything." 
 Among other things there are to be certain 
 "Detention Colonies of a reformatory type"; 
 and a careful perusal of the publications of the 
 Minority Report of the Poor Law Commission, 
 side by side with Mr. Meek's confessions, leaves 
 me with an uncomfortable feeling that that is 
 about where Mr. Meek would fall under the new 
 order of things. At one point in his chequered 
 career Mr. Meek ceased for a time to be known by 
 his proper name and became D 12. He then inter- 
 viewed a prison governor and a number of warders 
 and formed an unfavourable impression. Exactly 
 the same class of men will supply the rank and 
 file of the officials in the "Detention Colony of a 
 reformatory type." They will be supplemented, 
 no doubt, by intelligent persons drawn from among 
 the active spirits in that political club with which 
 his relations became strained. On the whole I 
 think Mr. Meek will not only be happier, but 
 socially more profitable, scribbling his impressions 
 of our enigmatical and still largely unreformed 
 universe during a phase of "discontinuous em-
 
 INTRODUCTION xxvii 
 
 ployment." I am afraid, in spite of his sanguine 
 note, that the Minority Report is no effective 
 solution of the riddle of what to do with our 
 Meeks. 
 
 Meanwhile, Mr. Meek has decided what to do 
 with himself, and has sampled life for the intelli- 
 gent reader at a level at which I do not think it 
 has ever been sampled with any vividness before. 
 And what a horrible state of affairs it is, this 
 unavoidably dingy, unavoidably dirty, pinched 
 insecurity! When I think of this man's brain 
 going in the midst of that life, and going with 
 a certain 'undeniable fineness, fearing, hoping, 
 rejoicing, whetting itself upon occasional books, 
 getting hold of the extensive theorizing of Social- 
 ism, arguing about fate and politics with the 
 other chair-men on the rank, sitting down in a 
 comfortless room to that projected work on 
 Ethics, with a copying-ink pencil and a blue-ruled 
 penny exercise book, I am amazed at the un- 
 conquerable pertinacity of the literary spirit. 
 
 Mr. Meek has convinced me that human life 
 means to get itself stated, and that nothing can 
 gag it. For after all, wherever our lot or our 
 quality takes us writers, our business is to state 
 life and for us, when that is done, then every- 
 thing is done. 
 
 H. G. WELLS.
 
 CONTENTS 
 
 CHAP. PASK 
 
 I BIRTH, PARENTAGE AND EARLY DAYS . I 
 
 II BOYHOOD IN THE COUNTRY . . l6 
 
 III LATER SCHOOLDAYS . . . 3O 
 
 IV GOING TO WORK .... 39 
 V COUNTRY AND TOWN .... 49 
 
 VI BACK TO EASTBOURNE ... 59 
 
 VII LONDON AND NEW YORK . . . 80 
 
 VIII AN AMERICAN FARM .... 88 
 
 IX SPRING ON THE FARM. ... 95 
 
 X LEAVING AMERICA . . . . IOI 
 
 XI RUTH 106
 
 xxx CONTENTS 
 
 CHAT. 
 
 XII LOVERS UNDER THE ROSE . . . 1 16 
 
 XIII THE LIBERAL CLUB . . . 123 
 
 XIV ODDS AND ENDS . . . 135 
 XV A YEAR OF DARK DAYS . . . 140 
 
 XVI I ADOPT MY PROFESSION . . . 149 
 
 XVII THE CURSE OF CASUAL EMPLOYMENT . 159 
 
 XVIII THE BRIGHTER SIDE OF CHAIR-WORK . 169 
 
 xix "DEVANT LES SCENES" . . .177 
 
 XX OTHER LOVES ..... 1 82 
 
 XXI FIELD LANE . . . . .187 
 
 XXII GOING TO THE DEVIL . , . .194 
 
 XXIII HOME AND MARRIED LIFE . . . 2O2 
 
 XXIV THE LOWEST DEPTH .... 2CK) 
 
 XXV SOME MORE OF OUR HOMES AND A FEW 
 
 OF OUR LODGERS 226
 
 CONTENTS xxxi 
 
 CHAP. PAGE 
 
 XXVI THE PLEASURES OF LIFE . . . 235 
 
 XXVII MY SOCIALIST WORK . . . 240 
 
 XXVIII TRYING TO CLIMB . . . , 264 
 
 EPILOGUE . . . . 277
 
 GEORGE MEEK 
 
 BATHCHAIR-MAN 
 
 CHAPTER I 
 
 BIRTH, PARENTAGE AND EARLY DAYS 
 
 I WAS born in a small cottage in East Street, 
 Eastbourne, just behind the "Rose and Crown" 
 public-house, on Whit Monday, June I, 1868. 
 My father's family was of Scottish descent. It 
 had, I understand, migrated from Inverness to 
 Leith and from Leith to Hastings. Here my 
 father was born, the youngest but one of a large 
 family. 
 
 His father appears to have earned a precarious 
 livelihood by gathering, cutting and polishing 
 agates. These are to be found on the southern 
 beaches, and some of them are, I believe, of 
 considerable value. There was formerly a very 
 good collection of them at the Wish Tower 
 Museum in Eastbourne, but that has been trans- 
 ferred to the Technical Institute in Grove Road.
 
 I do not remember my father nor any mem- 
 ber of his family. My grandfather Meek was, 
 I should say, one of those people who hoard 
 up their money for a time and then make ducks 
 and drakes of it. My mother used to say I 
 "took after" him. I may do, so far as the 
 "ducks and drakes" are concerned, but I certainly 
 do not with respect to the hoarding. Once 
 when a lad I saved my pence for some time until 
 a curious money-box, which my mother had sent 
 me from America, should have contained at least 
 five shillings, but when I went to it one day I 
 found it empty. My bank had "suspended pay- 
 ment," and I have never felt tempted to save 
 money since. 
 
 My father had four brothers and a sister. 
 Two or three of the brothers joined the Royal 
 Navy, which they deserted to settle in the Colonies 
 or the U. S. A. The youngest brother became, 
 like my father, a plasterer, and, like the Atridae, 
 they married two sisters. The remarkable open- 
 ing up of the country caused by the introduction 
 of railroads gave a great impetus to the building 
 trade. Fashionable watering-places sprang up 
 like mushrooms where previously only small fish- 
 ing towns and villages had been. Amongst these 
 Hastings and Eastbourne were of the earliest to 
 benefit : to which fact is due the circumstance that 
 my father, coming from Hastings to Eastbourne 
 in the course of his employment, met my mother.
 
 PARENTAGE AND EARLY DAYS 3 
 
 She came of an entirely different stock. He 
 was probably descended from wild highlandmen 
 and predatory Norse (Bjornson has two or three 
 characters named "Meek" in one of his books 
 In God's Way), but she came of a family of 
 peasants from the English Midlands. My father 
 was very tall; she was very short and slight, with 
 nearly black hair, blue eyes, a large nose and a 
 gay but uncertain temper; an active, restless 
 little woman; very clean, but full of whims and 
 always chattering. A clean housewife, though 
 a bad manager, unable to take care of money. 
 
 She was the youngest of three sisters. The 
 other two, one of whom married my father's 
 youngest brother, died while I was very young. 
 I remember neither of them, but one of them 
 left a son who was brought up with me until I 
 was twelve years old. He was four and a half 
 years older than I was. These three sisters 
 had lost their mother when they were quite 
 young, and their father my grandfather had 
 married again, giving them as step-mother a 
 woman who had been betrayed in her young 
 days and had a son. No children were born of 
 my grandfather's second marriage. 
 
 He was a native of Finmer, a small village 
 on the borders of Oxfordshire and Buckingham- 
 shire. In his young days, while employed in 
 London, he had taught himself to read and write. 
 Later he had been in some sort of service under
 
 4 
 
 the last Duke of Buckingham at Stowe House, 
 Buckinghamshire, but in what capacity I do not 
 know. There used to be a good deal of talk 
 of poachers and poaching, so I should say he 
 was either an under-gamekeeper or one of their 
 natural enemies a poacher himself. 
 
 Whan the Duke of Buckingham died there 
 was a great sale at Stowe House, at which, I 
 have heard my grandfather say, a Lord Roths- 
 child outbid the late Queen Victoria for a valuable 
 bedstead. He himself bought some old Windsor 
 chairs from the kitchen, which, with their brightly 
 burnished brass crests consisting of a sheaf of 
 wheat surmounted by a crown and surrounded by 
 a motto were among the most familiar objects 
 of my early childhood. When, in after years, my 
 grandmother died and left them to me with the 
 rest of her furniture, being out of work I was glad 
 of the fancy price they fetched. 
 
 My mother's family came to the neighbour- 
 hood of Eastbourne from Buckinghamshire with 
 a farmer named Paxton, who had taken a farm 
 at Willingdon. Here they occupied an old flint 
 cottage which stood upon the corner of the main 
 road and Church Street where "Flint House" 
 now stands. Leaving Mr. Paxton's service after 
 a time my grandfather entered that of another 
 farmer named Reid at Jevington. Here he did 
 some poaching. My grandmother has often 
 spoken of burying fur and feathers to elude the
 
 PARENTAGE AND EARLY DAYS 5 
 
 search of their cottage made for them by game- 
 keepers. Butcher's meat was scarce and dear in 
 the country in those days. I do not suppose my 
 grandfather's wages were very high. There were 
 three growing girls to be kept, and doubtless an 
 occasional hare or partridge was acceptable. 
 
 At this period the countryside was frequented 
 by a "natural" named Mike, an eccentric 
 character of whom a few anecdotes may be 
 given. Asked one day by the village parson 
 which he would have, a half-crown or a half- 
 sovereign, he answered, "I won't be greedy, I '11 
 take the little one " He used to hawk brimstone 
 matches which he made himself. One day he 
 had lit a fire in a lane to melt the brimstone 
 when a farmer who was passing by kicked it out. 
 Mike hawked his matches without the brimstone, 
 telling the cottagers who complained that he 
 could n't help it : Jemmy Reid had kicked his 
 fire out. When his mother died (under, I pre- 
 sume, some hedgerow) the overseers of the parish 
 in which it happened gave him half-a-crown to 
 carry her body into the next parish, and when 
 she was buried he laid her shawl on her grave 
 "to keep her warm." 
 
 At Jevington at that time lived a girl who had 
 been born without arms. She was a school- 
 fellow of my mother, who said that when they 
 were playing some kind of game with a ball 
 "she would kick her slipper off and hit the ball
 
 6 GEORGE MEEK 
 
 with her foot." When she was married she 
 signed the register with her toes. She was 
 shown doing this in a contemporary illustrated 
 paper. Afterwards she kept her house clean 
 and washed and dressed her children, when they 
 were born, with her feet, but she kept her cot- 
 tage door locked so that no one should see how 
 it was done. She is, I believe, still living in 
 Eastbourne. 
 
 About 1862 my grandfather moved into East- 
 bourne, where he entered the employment of 
 James Peerless, the builder, as a carter. He 
 stayed with him twelve years, receiving eighteen 
 shillings per week wages. In '66 or '67 my 
 father and mother became acquainted and were 
 married. 
 
 When I was born I had such bright blue eyes 
 (like my mother's) that she very foolishly exposed 
 them too much to the light. Consequently I 
 caught a cold in them, which turning to inflamma- 
 tion I became, for a time, quite blind. I was taken 
 to Guy's Hospital and the Ophthalmic at Moor- 
 fields, and in time recovered the sight of one of 
 them. That of the other was irretrievably lost. My 
 mother said that the optic nerve was destroyed ; 
 but as there appears to be neither pupil nor iris, 
 and it is without any sense of light or darkness, I 
 should say the whole eye has gone. So that I 
 have been heavily handicapped from the very 
 beginning.
 
 I ran the gauntlet of the usual number of 
 childish complaints : scarlatina, scarlet-fever, meas- 
 les and so forth, which, as I was very fragile 
 and there was neither a local sanatorium nor the 
 present-day advance in sanitation and medical 
 knowledge, was surprising. 
 
 I do not remember my mother at this time nor 
 my father at all. There was a slump in the 
 building trade in Eastbourne in the winter of 
 *7O-'7i, and he, with many others, was thrown 
 out of work. For a time he appears to have 
 been engaged upon relief work, breaking flints 
 on the Grand Parade. A fellow plasterer, who 
 is now a bathchair-man, has spoken to me of 
 working with him there. However, he raised 
 the money somehow to emigrate to America, 
 where he obtained employment at his trade in 
 Brooklyn, New York, a week after landing. 
 
 He was, I should say, a good mechanic. He 
 did the mouldings on the ceilings in the recep- 
 tion-rooms in the older part of the Cavendish 
 Hotel, and for years afterwards we had a large 
 medallion in plaster of Shakespeare which he 
 made. 
 
 My mother followed him shortly afterwards. 
 She made the voyage in a sailing ship, and it 
 occupied fourteen weeks. A younger brother 
 of mine, whom she took with her, died soon 
 after they got to America. I was left behind 
 with my grandfather and grandmother, who
 
 8 GEORGE MEEK 
 
 were both much attached to me, and who feared, 
 as I was so delicate, I should not stand the voyage 
 or the change of climate. 
 
 My very earliest recollection is of my first 
 day at school. If I am to believe my mother, 
 I was only two and a half years old. But I 
 remember the occasion distinctly. We sat on low 
 benches on a low sloping "gallery" in the morning, 
 and in the afternoon I remember the teacher 
 chalking the figures I to 9 on the black-board. 
 
 I dimly remember my "uncle Charlie," the 
 son my grandmother had before marriage, and 
 I distinctly remember his wife, a sensuous woman 
 with long dark curls. They had a talking magpie 
 which they took to Ohio with them. 
 
 The pair had no children when they left England. 
 In America they had a son, who was christened 
 "Prince Otto" after a character in either The 
 Farmer of Inglewood Forest or The Children of the 
 Abbey I do not know which, as I have read 
 neither of them. 
 
 My home life during this period was very 
 happy. My grandparents were very good to 
 me, and although we were poor we never knew 
 what it was to want. My grandmother went out 
 to work occasionally, but not, I think, regularly. 
 I can remember her at a laundry in Cavendish 
 Place, where I was anxious to turn the mangle; 
 but I remember more distinctly her lace-making. 
 She had a "pillow" and boxes of "bobbins,"
 
 PARENTAGE AND EARLY DAYS 9 
 
 and with these she made excellent hand lace. 
 She told me in after years that she used to sit 
 on the beach in front of the Grand Parade with 
 this work in the summer time and that she found 
 some good customers for it among the passing 
 gentry. I remember that one day she went over 
 the rocks close to the Wish Tower to gather 
 limpets, and that she fell and cut her face dread- 
 fully. Also, about this time, I had some kind 
 of formation growing above my left eye which 
 had to be plastered up, and my grandfather 
 made a final plaster with cobbler's wax which 
 was most difficult and painful to remove. 
 
 Part of the time we lived in a little two-roomed 
 cottage in a yard, or "close," off Grove Road. 
 This has since been demolished. Here, I re- 
 member, my grandfather brought out his gun 
 and shot some starlings, which he had, baked in 
 a pie, for supper. I think I must have been 
 left by myself a great deal, or at most with my 
 cousin, a lad who at that time could not have 
 been more than seven or eight years old. There 
 are recollections of lonely meals I ate, of no 
 care except from him, of long evenings spent 
 waiting for grandfather and grandmother to 
 come home. 
 
 They always came home sober. I do not re- 
 member seeing my grandfather the worse for 
 drink except on one occasion, and that was on 
 a Christmas Day. He had a glass or two of
 
 10 
 
 ale every day, but I gather that he never ex- 
 ceeded. My grandmother was never addicted to 
 drink. She was careful, fond of her home, 
 making no silly pretensions, but just anxious to 
 live a quiet, comfortable life. One incident I 
 recall with reference to her at this time. She 
 had bought a new pair of boots at a local shop 
 on a Saturday night. On Sunday she and grand- 
 father went for a walk along the sands, and the 
 soles of her new boots fell off! 
 
 She loomed very large in my early days. 
 When she was at home I spent most of my out- 
 of-school hours with her. When I was sick I 
 remember only one occasion, when I had the 
 measles she nursed me, giving me, by the 
 doctor's orders, port wine, a drink which I pre- 
 ferred very much to the nasty medicine. For 
 some years afterwards whenever I felt I wanted 
 something particularly nice I complained of feel- 
 ing ill, and begged for more port wine. Then 
 I had trouble with my teeth, which she tried to 
 relieve by rubbing my gums with coarse salt. 
 
 Also there were warm baths and shower baths, 
 the latter administered by means of a garden 
 watering-pot; nauseous castor-oil every now and 
 then; pennies for sweets, which were often spent 
 in children's books. Of these I acquired quite 
 a large collection, and my grandfather bound 
 them into one large volume. I suppose I could 
 not read very well at that time, as I used to get
 
 PARENTAGE AND EARLY DAYS 11 
 
 him, when I bought a new book, to read it to 
 me. 
 
 The last year or two of our stay in Eastbourne 
 we occupied three back rooms in a house in 
 Cross Street, for which, I understand, my people 
 paid four shillings and sixpence per week. While 
 we were there the notable fire at Peerless* yard 
 occurred. 
 
 It was my habit on fine days, though I was 
 very young, to go up and meet my grandfather 
 in the evening when his work was done. I 
 believe I spent much of my spare time with him. 
 I remember going to the brick-yards with him, 
 where I used to watch him load his cart with 
 bricks. He put on his hands a pair of leather 
 things like gloves with no backs to them. Then 
 a man would throw bricks to him, three at a 
 time, from a large stack; these he caught, piling 
 them in his cart. 
 
 It was amusing when I walked home with 
 him to hear the tramp, tramp of his great hob- 
 nailed boots and the pitter, patter of my little 
 ones. On the night of the fire I went up to the 
 yard in Langney Road as usual. Here I saw 
 young Mr. Peerless, the son of the proprietor, 
 and, looking round at the great stacks of timber, 
 I remarked to him, in my wisdom, ''You will 
 have a fire here one of these nights." I think 
 my cousin Harry had set our own kitchen chim- 
 ney on fire with sawdust and shavings a night or
 
 12 GEORGE MEEK 
 
 two before, which, I suppose, suggested the idea 
 to me. At all events the place did catch fire 
 that night. My grandfather was called out of 
 bed to get the horses out of the stable, and I 
 saw the smoking ruins the next morning. It 
 was, I believe, the largest fire Eastbourne has 
 ever known. The yard where it occurred at 
 present occupied by Peerless, Dennis and Co. 
 abuts on a brewery, and fearing it might spread 
 the owners of the latter had all the wines, beers 
 and spirits taken from the cellars and placed in 
 the open street in Lismore Road, where the 
 militia or the volunteers were called upon to 
 guard them. The people in the opposite houses 
 in Langney Road hung wet blankets out of their 
 windows to keep their houses from catching 
 fire. 
 
 I do not remember much of my school life 
 during these years. I attended the infant school 
 in Meads Road, which was founded by a lady 
 member of the Cavendish family, for a time, and 
 those attached to Trinity Church and Christ 
 Church. From the latter a little flint box which 
 stands in the churchyard I one day played 
 truant, taking our landlady's children with me 
 to gather blackberries on the Crumbles. Our 
 landlady gave me a hiding, the first I ever re- 
 member having. I was not six years old, and 
 the blackberries were green! 
 
 There were many Sunday excursions with my
 
 PARENTAGE AND EARLY DAYS 13 
 
 own people. One to Willingdon, by a footpath 
 where Upperton Road now stands. Arrived at 
 the pretty cottage of an aunt and uncle at that 
 village, a cottage which stood on a bank, behind 
 a garden full of bright flowers, we had a grand 
 country dinner of boiled bacon, potatoes, broad 
 beans and pudding, which I know I, for one, 
 enjoyed. Then there were long walks to see 
 "Earp's Mansion," a big new house built with- 
 out chimneys by a Buckinghamshire gentleman 
 who, I have been told, had made a great deal of 
 money by running the blockade from Richmond 
 during the American Civil War with three ship- 
 loads of cotton. This house is now called "The 
 Cliff," and has been used for some years as a 
 ladies' school. The same gentleman built the 
 original Grand Hotel, which was, for some years, 
 a failure. 
 
 Also I remember seeing the Devonshire Park 
 and Baths while the former was being laid out 
 and the latter built. There was no parade be- 
 yond the Wish Tower to the west or the Albion 
 Hotel to the east in those days. Where the 
 residential west ward is now built used to be 
 farm land. The working class "Marsh" quarter 
 was marsh land, meadows in which we gathered 
 sorrel and floated along the intersecting ditches 
 upon mortar-boards. No houses should have 
 been built upon the land or upon the still more 
 swampy soil farther east, but the interests of
 
 14 GEORGE MEEK 
 
 private property owners outweigh those of public 
 health. 
 
 In these meadows, close to where we lived, 
 there used sometimes to be swings and round- 
 abouts, and sometimes circuses. Then, once a 
 year, there was the Guy Fawkes procession, a 
 glorious, exciting event with many torches and 
 fireworks, some of the latter dangerously virile. 
 And there was always the beach. I do not re- 
 member ever being hungry or cold, ill-shod or 
 ill-clothed during these years; they were, I be- 
 lieve, very happy ones indeed. I think I could 
 read and write "print" before I was six years 
 old. At any rate I wrote some letters to my 
 mother in America in that way during this time. 
 I do not remember being beaten or caned at any 
 of the infant schools I attended in Eastbourne. 
 During her first year at school my little daughter, 
 aged then five, came home with her hands so 
 badly beaten she could not bear any one to touch 
 them, so that it appears the treatment of school 
 children has not improved so very greatly. 
 
 In 1874, when I was six years old, my grand- 
 father gave up his place at Peerless the builder's 
 and took service as ploughman with a farmer 
 named Edwards at Jevington, a village five miles 
 over the hills and seven miles by road from 
 Eastbourne. 
 
 Before leaving this part of my life I have one 
 episode to record. The builder, Peerless, by
 
 PARENTAGE AND EARLY DAYS 15 
 
 whom my grandfather was employed, obtained 
 the contract to build a new workhouse at Chailey, 
 a small village in mid-Sussex. My grandfather 
 and uncle Charlie, the sawyer, were employed 
 upon it. They took me with them. I do not 
 remember either going or returning to this place, 
 but I remember that we slept in a ground-floor 
 room, which smelt of new wood and fresh paint, 
 in a finished part of the building, and that there 
 was great difficulty in finding water. A well was 
 being bored and it had to be carried very deep. 
 I saw the men descending, two at a time, one on 
 each side of what looked like a long section of 
 water-pipe, with two transverse bars, upon one 
 of which they stood while they held on by the 
 other, which was above their heads.
 
 CHAPTER II 
 
 BOYHOOD IN THE COUNTRY 
 
 MY grandfather was allowed the use of a farm 
 wagon to remove our furniture from Eastbourne 
 to Jevington. This, drawn by three huge brown 
 horses whose names I subsequently learned were 
 "Cubit," "Captain" and "Smiler," caused me 
 great wonder. It had no tail-board at the back, 
 simply a wooden bar across the top from side to 
 side, and at the bottom a roller, through two holes 
 in which long loose pegs were passed. This, I 
 learned afterwards, was used when the wagon 
 was loaded very high (with hay or corn, for in- 
 stance) to tighten the ropes which were passed 
 over it from the front. The horses were gay 
 with much jingling, brightly burnished brass 
 about their harness, and blue, red and yellow 
 ribbons on their bridles. 
 
 I, my grandmother and my cousin Harry rode 
 on top of the furniture. I do not remember 
 much of the journey, except that when we had 
 passed Wannock Glen my cousin got down 
 and gathered a large bunch of primroses for me, 
 
 16
 
 BOYHOOD IN THE COUNTRY 17 
 
 so it must have been in the early spring. It 
 is curious how little incidents of this kind are 
 retained in the memory. I can see him now, a 
 rough-clad little boy, handing the big bunch of 
 yellow flowers up to me as I sat on the wagon. 
 
 When we reached our little cottage we found 
 there was no fire-grate in it. A broken one was 
 borrowed. This had to be kept upright with 
 two or three loose bricks. It had originally been 
 a four-legged affair, but two of the legs had been 
 broken off. We made shift with this for a time 
 until a new one was bought. When my grand- 
 mother wanted to make a cake for Sunday's tea, 
 and was not using the large brick oven in the 
 washhouse, she baked it by placing it under the 
 grate with a sheet of tin over it to keep the ashes 
 from falling into it. This cottage can still be 
 seen. It stands on the right, just inside the 
 upper end of the village, opposite a large barn. 
 
 They found that my cousin Harry was not 
 needed, so they sent him into the workhouse. 
 But he was not there long. My grandfather, 
 much to my delight, fetched him out to be 
 his ploughboy. Poor Harry never had much 
 education. 
 
 The next few years are crowded with memories 
 and impressions. My school life was an event- 
 ful one. The village school was managed by a 
 retired naval man and his daughter, assisted by 
 a pupil teacher. A great stickler for the Church
 
 18 GEORGE MEEK 
 
 and Church teaching, he soon initiated me into 
 its meaning. I found that while the children of 
 one or two well-to-do people were screened and 
 pampered, the portion of the cottager's child 
 was mostly knocks. Although I was scarcely 
 seven years old, I was punished daily. The 
 great trouble was my writing. Somehow I could 
 not acquire the graceful sloping style similar to 
 that used in engravings which ~Vas expected of 
 us. Consequently my young head was the con- 
 stant recipient of hard blows from the school- 
 master's black ruler, and I was so frequently 
 caned that my hands became too sore to hold 
 the pen. I remember one occasion very well. 
 I had a severe cold in my eyes, and could scarcely 
 distinguish the lines upon which I was supposed 
 to write; everything appeared as through a thick 
 mist. This, however, did not screen me from 
 punishment. I felt so bitterly the injustice 
 meted out to me that I went home and complained 
 to my grandfather. He was so angry that, 
 meeting the school-master in the street, he 
 threatened to thrash him, and he would not let 
 me go to school again for some months. Finally 
 the school-attendance officer intervened and made 
 peace between them. 
 
 On the first day of my return to school the 
 pedagogue assembled the whole of the children 
 and gave them a long address about me and my 
 wickedness. Most impressively he assured them
 
 BOYHOOD IN THE COUNTRY 19 
 
 that he should detail the incident in his "log 
 book"! 
 
 I do not remember much else of my school 
 days there except that the daughter was almost 
 as unkind to me as the father. She afterwards 
 married the farmer for whom my grandfather 
 worked; at that time he had a housekeeper who 
 had a son a fair-haired boy who was my first 
 great friend. We were inseparable. Whatever 
 mischief was afoot at our end of the village we 
 were in it generally the ringleaders. Occasion- 
 ally the farmer would have a nephew or two 
 staying with him I suppose they must have 
 been well-to-do: they were always well-dressed 
 and always had plenty of pocket-money. We 
 tolerated them, but though they were glad to 
 join in our games, we did not fail to let them 
 know we could do without them. We had our 
 own group at our end of the village. There 
 were more children at the other end with whom 
 we occasionally fraternized, but we were better 
 dressed than most of them. Not that our friends 
 were better off, only that they looked after us 
 better. 
 
 On December 6, 1876, my grandfather received 
 a telegram from Brooklyn, N. Y., saying that 
 a theatre had been burnt down, and my father 
 had been one of the audience. Shortly after- 
 wards a letter in a black-bordered envelope came 
 from my mother. My grandfather was threshing
 
 20 GEORGE MEEK 
 
 oats with a flail in one of the barns. I was 
 sent to him with it, and directly he saw it he 
 broke down and cried like a child, for my father 
 had been killed in the fire. He died actually 
 from heart disease, to which he was subject, so 
 my mother was told, but he was badly burnt; 
 afterwards it was only by his watch that he was 
 identified. He is buried in Evergreen Cemetery, 
 New York. I suppose, on the whole, he must 
 have been a steady man. My mother used to 
 speak of a terrible wickedness he was guilty of. 
 While living in Eastbourne he ran up a beer 
 score at the "Brighton Arms," then popularly 
 known as "Billy Home's," and sometimes in 
 America he would go on the spree, causing her 
 great anxiety on account of the brutality of the 
 police, who in the Land of Freedom are very 
 free on occasion with their clubs. One night in 
 Brooklyn he came home with his overcoat turned 
 inside out "to keep it dry." However, he could 
 not have been so very bad, as at the time of his 
 death he had worked up a small business as a 
 contracting plasterer, and had four or five men 
 working for him. I should say he was a studious 
 man, as when my mother returned to England 
 she brought a large number of technical works 
 on building construction and architecture with 
 her which he had left. I think he must have 
 done well, as she lived for over six months after- 
 wards in Brooklyn, and had enough left to pay
 
 BOYHOOD IN THE COUNTRY 21 
 
 her passage home and land with a considerable 
 quantity of baggage and some money. 
 
 Her return was the occasion of my first great 
 disappointment. I looked forward for weeks to 
 the happiness of meeting her and my two brothers, 
 longing to have a mother and brothers like other 
 children. But when she came I soon discovered 
 that all her affections were centred in her other 
 children, and I was left out in the cold. She 
 hated me for being nearly blind, and because 
 my grandfather and grandmother thought so 
 much of me. 
 
 The two sons she brought home with her, one 
 of them four years old, the other a few months, 
 had been born in America. She had eight children 
 in all, four of whom died, one in England, three 
 in America. 
 
 I remember her home-coming. It was in the 
 summer. They drove up from Polegate station 
 with my grandfather, who had gone to meet 
 them in a wagonette. They were very cross 
 and tired, and when I wanted to be affectionate 
 I was repelled. She lived with us for some time, 
 but she and my grandmother began to quarrel, 
 and she took a small two-roomed cottage at the 
 lower end of the village. Her money being 
 spent, she applied for parish relief, which she 
 supplemented with what she could earn as a 
 dressmaker. 
 
 She was still quite young under thirty years
 
 22 
 
 of age. I am afraid she "showed off" her Yankee 
 accent and phrases rather amongst the villagers. 
 I remember her as being sometimes kind to me, 
 sometimes otherwise. She suffered considerably 
 with sick-headaches. 
 
 My life during these years from the age of 
 six to nine was, in spite of the cruel school- 
 master, and latterly of motherly frowns, very 
 happy. I took a keen interest in everything 
 about me. Our cottage was small, but suf- 
 ficient: a little white- washed four-roomed place 
 with leaded windows. The two lower rooms had 
 brick floors. The front room was covered with 
 thick coker-nut matting. In the back room, the 
 "wash-house," was a large oven, in which my 
 grandmother baked bread and cakes twice a 
 week. She also made ginger-beer, which she 
 sold to passers-by and the village children, with 
 sweets and biscuits. She said that I ate all the 
 profits. The oven was heated by burning huge 
 bundles of furze in it. 
 
 Our next-door neighbours were the village 
 blacksmith's two brothers, who lived with their 
 mother and sister. These were fairly well-to-do 
 people who kept bees, and often gave me honey 
 in the comb and fruit. 
 
 On the other side was a large orchard, the 
 happy hunting-ground of the village lads in 
 autumn as its owner lived nearly half a mile away. 
 
 In the autumn and winter my grandfather
 
 BOYHOOD IN THE COUNTRY 23 
 
 would go rabbit-shooting (he had the farmer's 
 permission to do so over some downland), and 
 often brought six or eight brace home with him, 
 but I never remember seeing him with a par- 
 tridge or pheasant, or even a hare. He was 
 fond of animals, of his horses and our domestic 
 pets, which consisted of a tabby cat, a blackbird, 
 a goldfinch and a number of tame rabbits. The 
 cottage had about ten rods of garden attached. 
 This ran down the side, the larger part given 
 over to vegetables, but a long slip of it under a 
 wall contained, among other things, flowers the 
 seeds of which had been sent us from Ohio. 
 This was my grandmother's special care. One 
 year we tried to grow some Indian corn, but 
 though it grew very high and the ears developed, 
 it never fully ripened. People passing in car- 
 riages would often stop to buy a bunch of flowers. 
 My grandmother insisted always that only 
 sweet-smelling ones were worth having, con- 
 sequently in the summer her garden scented 
 the whole place. There was a pear tree, the 
 special resting-place, I used to think, of our cat, 
 and in the wall, serving the two houses, a well, 
 from the depths of which the buckets some- 
 times brought up bright-coloured lizards with 
 the water. The neighbours once gave me so 
 much honey it made me ill ; too ill to go to school 
 so ill, indeed, that I loathed peppermint drops 
 and regarded brandy balls as a delusion and a
 
 24 GEORGE MEEK 
 
 snare. And I had not been ill for years as a boy 
 counts. 
 
 About this time a new family of working 
 people came to live at our end of the village. 
 There were many children, among them a girl 
 of ten or eleven, who became at once in a child- 
 ish way, and afterwards in fact, "the village 
 flirt," a la Rabelais. She was the first girl of this 
 description I ever met, but not by any means 
 the last. They are a class to themselves among 
 women. They are not "led astray," as the ortho- 
 dox novel would have us believe; they lead 
 others from the paths of virtue. Although I 
 always went to mixed schools, and out of school- 
 hours the boys and girls fraternized in their play 
 to a very great extent, she was the only specimen 
 of this type I knew as a child. With this excep- 
 tion, though the girls would romp with us, join 
 freely in our games and our excursions after 
 nuts, berries or flowers, their behaviour towards 
 us and ours towards them was perfectly free from 
 any taint of impropriety. 
 
 Such women, however carefully they are 
 guarded, and to whatever class they belong, will 
 find a way to give expression to their individual- 
 ity sooner or later. George Moore, in A Drama 
 in Muslin, portrays one of them who had been 
 carefully brought up in a convent, and that 
 author does not, I believe, usually exaggerate in 
 the delineation of character. I have met and
 
 BOYHOOD IN THE COUNTRY 25 
 
 heard and read of numerous individual women 
 of this kind in various classes of society. In 
 them an abnormal development of the sex sense 
 in maturity appears to follow upon its premature 
 manifestation. 
 
 I think she struck a jarring note in my life, 
 although it had little effect upon my conception 
 of women generally. I suppose I have to thank 
 what little strain of poetry there is in my tem- 
 perament for the fact that from my earliest years 
 I have always been given to idealizing the fair 
 sex. Although my experience leads me to con- 
 clude that I am mistaken, I always like to think 
 of them as being but a little lower than the angels. 
 
 My experience has led me to divide women 
 into three classes. First, the merely animal, 
 carried away by their lusts, from which the 
 majority of prostitutes are recruited. Second, 
 the merely superficial, concerned with nothing 
 but their daily round of duties and their neigh- 
 bours' affairs. This forms a large class; they 
 are the supporters of penny novelettes; they have 
 no ideal beyond a fine frock or a new hat. The 
 third comprises the refined, visionary women of 
 high ideals who attempt and do things; women 
 like Julia Dawson, Margaret MacMillan and 
 Mabel Hope. You can scarcely ever interest the 
 first or second class in politics. 
 
 I was then nine years of age, and I suppose 
 those whose children are watched over by trained
 
 26 GEORGE MEEK 
 
 nurses and governesses of unimpeachable re- 
 spectability would be horrified were I to tell just 
 simply and plainly all that was done by us little 
 children, and just all the range of knowledge 
 our talk covered. No doubt it was all very dread- 
 ful, but I think such premature experience is far 
 commoner among poor children that is to say, 
 among the mass of the population than many 
 delicate-minded people are disposed to believe. 
 It smirched me, no doubt; technically, I was 
 "corrupted," but on the whole, as I try to recall 
 the phases of my subsequent development, I am 
 bound to confess I think it injured me but little. 
 It did n't a bit prevent my falling into the purest 
 and tenderest love when my time came for that. 
 Perhaps it made its purity possible. 
 
 The life on the farm interested me very much. 
 When we first went there, all the operations 
 sowing, mowing, reaping and threshing were 
 carried out by hand. I saw the steam-plough 
 introduced, the horse-drill, the mowing and 
 reaping machines and the complicated steam- 
 thresher. These were, of course, great wonders 
 to me. The harvest field was a source of never- 
 ending fun, the hiding in " shocks," helping to 
 bind the sheaves or gleaning. Afterwards came 
 the blackberrying and nutting. On the whole, 
 I think the life of a country child is much more 
 interesting than that of one in the town. In this 
 village none of the other children was unkind
 
 BOYHOOD IN THE COUNTRY 27 
 
 to me. Previously in the town, though I was 
 very little, the boys used to chase me, calling 
 me "Blind-eyes." The same thing happened 
 when I returned to Eastbourne later. I was 
 afraid to pass a Sunday-school crowd, because 
 I was certain to be assailed by derisive cries on 
 account of my sight. It may be that in the 
 countryside the children feel more easily criticism 
 and observation than they do in that wilderness 
 of strangers the town. 
 
 I think I have written all that is worth telling 
 of my experiences in this first village. 
 
 My life at Jevington, as it appears to me now 
 in the retrospect, was made up principally of 
 mischief and pleasure. The joy of life was 
 strong in me. I took great interest in the riding 
 of bare-backed horses more than one of which 
 threw me and upon loads of wheat to the miller's 
 or the nearest railway-station. Once we went 
 into Eastbourne for a load of gravel. My grand- 
 father, with the other men, stopped at a road- 
 side public-house, the "Archery Tavern," for 
 lunch (commonly called "bait" amongst them). 
 They had beer, and when one of them asked 
 me what I would have (eclat, eight!), I said 
 "Brandy"! 
 
 I continued to be a great reader. Our library 
 was a limited one, consisting at first, if I remember 
 rightly, of Hume's History of England, another 
 school history and Sturm's Reflections. To this
 
 28 
 
 my people subsequently added an illustrated 
 family Bible, Bunyan's Pilgrim's Progress and 
 Holy War, which they bought in monthly parts. 
 The last I read with avidity again and again, 
 little thinking that one of the tinker's descendants 
 was to play a very important part in my own life. 
 
 After my mother's return from America, our 
 people, at her request, bought what at that time 
 was called "Book" tea. You bought so many 
 pounds of tea, and then you received a book in 
 return for the coupons attached to each package. 
 In this way I became acquainted with Diprose's 
 Annual, 1876-77, Robinson Crusoe and The Swiss 
 Family Robinson; the last was my favourite amongst 
 them all. 
 
 But alas! and alas! my happy days happy 
 in spite of canings and motherly frowns were 
 numbered. My grandfather quarrelled with the 
 farmer for whom he worked at Jevington, and 
 taking service with another over the hills in a 
 neighbouring village, had only been with him 
 three weeks when he died of bronchitis, aged 
 fifty-nine. 
 
 His death was a great blow to me. He had 
 been always, if anything, too kind to me. He 
 more than filled the place of my father, whom 
 I never remember seeing. I was very greatly 
 attached to him, and delighted to be with him 
 in the fields, or going to Polegate with him on a 
 load of corn. Sometimes I would wander away
 
 BOYHOOD IN THE COUNTRY 29 
 
 by myself among the hedgerows or over the 
 lonely South Downs seeking new natural curiosi- 
 ties in the way of flowers, berries or fungi. Once, 
 being very hungry, I ate several of these fungi, 
 and was fearfully sick. Out of school, within 
 reasonable limits, I was allowed to do pretty 
 much as I liked. Under the hills, just beyond the 
 old Church, there used to be a plantation of 
 wild raspberries. Here, one day, a badger was 
 found, and the hunt which followed threw the 
 village into great excitement.
 
 CHAPTER III 
 
 LATER SCHOOLDAYS 
 
 AFTER my grandfather's death my mother and 
 grandmother lived together for two years and a 
 half at Willingdon. We were very poor, I re- 
 member. There was no regular income apart 
 from some small relief from the parish and my 
 cousin's earnings as a carter boy, which were not 
 great. 
 
 Occasionally my grandmother did a day's 
 washing or charing. My mother set up in 
 business as a dressmaker, but I am afraid she did 
 not prosper greatly. My grandfather had been 
 paid sixteen shillings a week. In addition he 
 had a cottage rent free. This had ensured us a 
 regular, if plain living. It was, I remember, 
 very plain. I grew up thin and delicate. They 
 could scarcely ever persuade me to touch meat 
 of any kind, and prophesied frequently that I 
 should never live to be twenty-one. It is a mis- 
 take to prophesy unless you know, because, thin 
 and delicate as I was then, I am now over forty- 
 one. 
 
 30
 
 LATER SCHOOLDAYS 31 
 
 For breakfast we almost invariably had soaked 
 bread: the children's flavoured with milk and 
 sugar; the "grown-ups'" with butter, pepper and 
 salt. Meat was rare. The Sunday dinner almost 
 always consisted of steak-puddings or boiled 
 bacon; during the week we sometimes had 
 liver or lights; but more often plain suet- or 
 bread-pudding, with vegetables. On Sundays 
 the meat-pudding or bacon was always followed 
 by a fruit-pudding of some kind. We seldom 
 had pies they did n't go so far as puddings ; 
 and roast or baked joints were undreamed-of 
 luxuries. 
 
 At Willingdon the school-master, Mr. Hurst, 
 and his assistant, Mr. Ewins, were men of differ- 
 ent calibre to the Jevington pedagogue. They 
 were, for that period, up-to-date, taking a keen 
 interest in their scholars, and doing their best 
 to advance them. They both, I remember, used 
 to ride the old "ordinary" bike. Under their 
 care these schooldays at Willingdon were much 
 happier than my earlier ones. I advanced very 
 rapidly, and came to be held up as a model to 
 those of more sluggish intelligence. They say 
 that "happy is the people that has no history"! 
 I suppose these years must have been happy for 
 me, for they were most uneventful. Apart from 
 my school experiences, I only remember that I 
 was continually falling in love with one or the 
 other of the village girls. The first one was a
 
 32 
 
 bewitching brunette named Laura. I kissed her 
 one day in the school porch. This heinous out- 
 rage was reported to her father, a Calvinistic 
 shoemaker, who, catching me passing his house 
 a day or two after, lectured me for half-an-hour 
 on my wickedness. 
 
 At this school I first came into contact with 
 party politics. During my last few months there 
 the '80 election took place, and as a friendly 
 shoemaker a strong Radical and an atheist, 
 who lent me books told me that the Liberals 
 were the friends of the poor working people, I 
 became an ardent Liberal. That party gained a 
 large majority in the country, but to my disgust 
 they failed to win East Sussex. This same shoe- 
 maker had formerly been a colporteur. He had 
 quite a decent library, which I was very glad to 
 make use of. Among the books he lent me the 
 one which at that time I most enjoyed was 
 Haydn's Dictionary of Dates a book which 
 ought to be accessible to all the scholars in the 
 higher standards of elementary schools. Our 
 historical courses, as I remember them, gave us 
 only a narrow, vague view of the history of our 
 world. 
 
 At Willingdon school I had my first formal 
 introduction to the arts. At Jevington we had 
 one or two lessons in drawing, but though I 
 always longed to learn to draw, lessons were not 
 always to be had. My grandfather had, I pre-
 
 LATER SCHOOLDAYS 33 
 
 sume, a musical turn, which he exercised occa- 
 sionally on a much-prized brass whistle, but I 
 learned little or nothing of the art and craft of 
 music until I went to Willingdon school, where, 
 on the outbreak of the Russo-Turkish war and 
 the Jingo fever, a drum and fife band was organ- 
 ized. In this I was allowed to play the triangle; 
 the performers on the fifes facetiously remarking 
 that I played the principal instrument, as I was 
 supposed to keep the rest in time. Later, the 
 bass drummer resigning his post, I was pro- 
 moted to that dignity. We used to march round 
 the village making collections towards the cost of 
 our instruments, music and gold-braided caps. 
 While I was big drummer Miss Heinemann 
 (whose family at that time lived at Ratton, the 
 residence of the Hon. Freeman Thomas, M.P.) 
 was married. This was made the occasion of a 
 great fete in Ratton Bottom a little valley below 
 Ratton Place. Our band was requisitioned. As 
 I was at most only eleven years of age, it was 
 necessary for another small boy to march along 
 and help carry my drum while I belaboured it. 
 Going back into the village at the conclusion of 
 this fete, we had to climb a rather steep slope. 
 Here my assistant let go of our instrument, and 
 I rolled back with the drum on top of me, beat- 
 ing away till I was picked up. 
 
 This Miss Heinemann's family were very good 
 to the village children. On the occasion of her
 
 34 GEORGE MEEK 
 
 marriage each child was given a post-office bank- 
 book with a shilling in it to their credit, to in- 
 duce them to learn to save. Mine was soon 
 withdrawn by my mother. Every winter they 
 distributed cloth to make the boys suits, 
 " lindsey-wolsey " to make the girls frocks, and 
 flannel for underclothes for both girls and boys. 
 
 At this my last school I did fairly well in 
 arithmetic, geography, grammar and reading. 
 When I stayed at the school during lunch and 
 dinner times, as I often did, I used to read the 
 books intended for the higher standards, if I 
 could get hold of them. But I was most pro- 
 ficient in "Scripture knowledge." I was placed 
 at the head of the school, and held up as an 
 example to the rest on account of my theology, 
 and I knew practically as much about God as a 
 field-mouse knows of the moon. 
 
 At this school, too, I composed my first poem. 
 It ran something like this, but as I am quoting 
 from memory I will not vouch for its accuracy 
 
 "A ship was sailing on the sea, 
 The sky was clear and light, 
 And old de Bourne was at the helm, 
 His face was glad and bright. 
 
 Then all at once a storm arose, 
 
 Which swept that ship away, 
 And what became of old de Bourne 
 
 I '11 now go on to say.
 
 LATER SCHOOLDAYS 35 
 
 A shark was lurking down below, 
 
 A-looking for his dinner, 
 And very pleased was he to dine 
 
 Upon that wicked sinner." 
 
 There was more of it, but this is all I recollect. 
 
 In addition to our annual school treat, a con- 
 cert in the school-room in the winter, and our 
 marches out with the band, our pleasures con- 
 sisted of sliding ("tobogganing") down the 
 grassy slopes of the downs on pieces of board 
 a very exciting pastime, though practically safe 
 when the slope was well chosen. There are 
 some fine slopes above Lower Willingdon, and 
 the pastime can be enjoyed almost any time of 
 the year. Indeed, it is best in the summer when 
 the grass is dry and crisp, and the air scented 
 with wild herbs. There were also the recurring 
 village fair and club feast. "Maying," Guy 
 Fawkes' Day, cricket in the summer and sliding 
 in the winter. Of these, the village fair, club 
 feast and "Maying" are now things of the past. 
 The Guy Fawkes' celebrations, with their torches, 
 rockets and queer fancy costumes, are flickering 
 out. At that time football was practically un- 
 known among us; but cricket was the great thing. 
 Most of the boys were devoted to it, and have 
 since, some of them, become very proficient. 
 One, Joe Vine, who plays for Sussex, has achieved 
 a great name. I have always taken a keen
 
 36 GEORGE MEEK 
 
 interest in our county cricket. It is about the 
 only form of sport I do take an interest in. I have 
 been hoping for years to see Sussex at the head of 
 the counties, but I am getting an old man now, 
 and they seem as far off as ever. Talking of 
 "the" game, I once wrote some verses in which I 
 prophesied that in their northern tour our county 
 would beat both Yorkshire and Lancashire. I 
 sent these to the Clarion, and as our side was badly 
 beaten by Yorks at Leeds, Harry Beswick printed 
 them, with a very caustic comment. However, 
 as Ranji and his men went on to Old Trafford and 
 gave Lancashire "what for," "Bezique," who 
 "wondered what Lanes would do with our lot 
 when their turn came," did n't have the smile all 
 to himself. 
 
 Before leaving Willingdon, I must speak with 
 the highest praise of the vicar, the late Canon 
 Lowe. I was too young to form an opinion of 
 his powers as a preacher, but I do know that he 
 used to lend those of us who cared to have them 
 copies of The Boys' Own Paper, Young England, 
 Chatterbox and other magazines, and he would 
 answer any questions we put to him about what 
 we had been reading. He was a white-haired, 
 benevolent old gentleman. He, earlier in our stay 
 at Willingdon, procured my admission to the Eye 
 Infirmary, Queen's Road, Brighton, and accom- 
 panied me and my mother to that institution. 
 
 This was the first time I had ever been away
 
 LATER SCHOOLDAYS 37 
 
 from home for any length of time, and it seemed 
 very strange to me. There were four or five 
 patients beside myself. The second day I was 
 there I underwent an operation, without anaes- 
 thetics, part of the iris of my left eye being re- 
 moved, so as to expose more of the surface of the 
 pupil. Ever since I was a child a small speck 
 (called an "ulcera," I believe) has obscured the 
 direct vision of that eye. The operation was fear- 
 fully painful. The last thing I saw was the 
 lancet descending. Then there was a terrible 
 pang and all went red. I shrieked, but as I was 
 securely strapped down to the operating table I 
 could not move. After that for over a fortnight 
 I had to go about feeling my way with my eye 
 bandaged. Although we had plenty of good 
 food, I could eat scarcely anything, and was very 
 homesick. When the bandages were removed 
 I found that objects held quite close to my eye 
 became out of focus. It is so still. Their out- 
 lines become blurred and indistinct. The bridge 
 of my eye-glasses, for instance, multiplies itself 
 so many times that it looks like a narrow black 
 cloud through which I can see other objects. 
 At a distance I can see quite well, and have no 
 difficulty whatever in getting about, though I 
 must admit I should be sorry to undertake to 
 drive a motor. 
 
 I visited Willingdon this week. It does n't 
 seem greatly changed, except that the passing
 
 38 GEORGE MEEK 
 
 motors have spoilt the appearance of the roadside 
 gardens and hedgerows. I have not been to 
 Jevington for a long while. It lies in a secluded 
 valley off the main road, five miles by a footpath 
 over the hills, and seven miles by road from 
 Eastbourne. Willingdon is only about two and 
 a half miles on the main road to Lewes, Brighton 
 and London. It is situated on a spot which di- 
 vides, not "the Desert from the Sown," but the 
 beautiful old Downs, with their wide, open 
 spaces, from the cultivated Weald. 
 
 When I was twelve years old, my mother 
 having made the acquaintance of a country 
 butcher who had turned cabman in Eastbourne, 
 we went to live together in that town, leaving 
 my grandmother and cousin Harry behind in the 
 village.
 
 CHAPTER IV 
 
 GOING TO WORK 
 
 THE butcher-cabman would have married my 
 mother, but as he had a wife still living it was 
 out of the question. In his younger days he 
 had been a thoroughly bad lot, a drunkard, 
 whose cruelties drove his wife away from him. 
 When he met my mother he had been a teetotaler 
 for some years, and, I believe, remained so till 
 his death. He treated her well until she died. 
 She could not remain in Willingdon because she 
 was already expecting a child and she was ashamed 
 of that fact. 
 
 We occupied two unfurnished rooms in Susan's 
 Road for a time. Here my mother continued 
 to do a little dressmaking. Directly we arrived 
 in the town I set out in search of employment. 
 It being August and the height of the season, 
 I obtained a situation at once with a Mr. Gilbert, 
 a local baker, as errand boy. Here I remained 
 only four days. Being fragile (I was just turned 
 twelve) I found the baskets of bread heavy to 
 carry, I did not know my way about the town, 
 
 39
 
 40 GEORGE MEEK 
 
 and I expect the shop windows formed an irre- 
 sistible attraction to the boy fresh from the 
 country. Also my mother had provided me 
 with a new pair of boots which were much too 
 small for me. Anyway, I was gone too long on my 
 errands and thus quickly earned the order of the 
 sack. Then I obtained work with George Vine, 
 who kept a baker's shop in Pevensey Road. 
 There were several boys employed there. Our 
 duties consisted in selling hot rolls in the early 
 morning, buns and tarts on the beach later in the 
 day, and we filled up our time by delivering bread, 
 running errands and washing up and cleaning 
 tins and other utensils used in the bakehouse. 
 I stayed at this place some time. I was there at 
 the time of the great blizzard in January, '81, 
 when I had to wait outside of the bakehouse door 
 in the snow, because if it had been opened to 
 admit me it would have spoilt the "batch" of 
 bread. 
 
 On February 14 the same year, my sister Kate 
 was born. Joe and Arthur, my two younger 
 brothers, aged respectively eight and four, were 
 sent to a private school of the "dame" variety, 
 at which the fee was sixpence per week per child. 
 My own treatment at home was very harsh. 
 Although I boarded with the baker for whom I 
 worked I had to give up all my wages. Some- 
 times my mother would give me a penny on 
 Sundays, but that was all. After a time, grow-
 
 GOING TO WORK 41 
 
 ing sick of it all, and full of dreams of an inde- 
 pendent career, I ran away to Hastings, where 
 my cousin Harry had at that time gone to work; 
 but the police promptly sent me back home. As 
 I had spent all my wages I received a cruel thrash- 
 ing, which implanted a deep hatred in me against 
 the cabman who gave it me and my mother who 
 authorized it. 
 
 Then followed many other situations one at 
 the Gazette office, where I had to clean printing 
 rollers and hawk newspapers. I was never good 
 at hawking anything, and I did not make a 
 successful newsboy. Chemists, grocers, drapers, 
 book-shops followed. If I liked a place and 
 tried hard to keep it I was certain to get dis- 
 charged; if I didn't like it and didn't worry I 
 was usually kept on. I read a great deal when 
 I had the chance, my favourite paper being 
 Henderson's Young Folks. It had, I believe, 
 been called Young Folks 1 Budget, and after- 
 wards appeared as Young Folks' Paper. Any- 
 way, it was, in spite of the extravagance of some 
 of its stories, superior to most juvenile publica- 
 tions of that day. I wonder if any of my readers 
 remember Don Zalva the Brave, who met with 
 more exciting adventures in a week than the Cid 
 encountered in his whole life! or Ralpho the 
 Fearless, the Young Swordsman of Warsaw, whose 
 truly wonderful history inspired our young hearts 
 with undying hatred of Russian tyranny and pity
 
 42 
 
 for poor fallen Poland! But besides these ex- 
 travagant romances there were some really good 
 stories imported from America, to say nothing of 
 Treasure Island, Kidnapped and The Black Arrow 
 by the late R. L. Stevenson. I very much 
 preferred Young Folks to the baser kind of boys' 
 paper which was so prevalent at that time. I 
 have no doubt but that such demoralizing rub- 
 bish as was served up in The Boys of London and 
 New York and the Young Men(?~) of Great Britain, 
 and such like publications paved the way for the 
 existence of our more disreputable daily press. 
 I have read Mr. Wells's Tono-Bungay since writing 
 the foregoing, but I still think the "Penny Dread- 
 fuls" of that period an unmixed evil. 
 
 I did not tire of Young Folks for a good many 
 years. I have always liked to have at least one 
 paper in which to take a keen interest. After 
 Young Folks, while I was under the religious 
 influence, it was the Gospel Standard, then the 
 Clarion, which made Friday a red-letter day 
 every week for years; now the New Age, the 
 Clarion still, the Woman Worker, since Julia 
 Dawson has occupied the editorial chair, and 
 the Sunday Chronicle. 
 
 After a time, my home life growing more and 
 more intolerable to me, I ran away again. This 
 time, instead of going to Hastings, I made a 
 bee-line, as near as I could, towards Brighton, 
 going over the hills. After passing through
 
 GOING TO WORK 43 
 
 East Dean and Friston I made for the cliffs, for- 
 getting that I should have to cross the little river 
 Cuckmere, of whose existence I was certainly 
 aware when I was at school as, being told by 
 the teacher to draw a map of Sussex on the black- 
 board one day, I included that river in it, fairly 
 accurately indicating its course, much to his 
 surprise, as it was not given in our school maps 
 of the county. As it happened, however, a 
 postman was crossing when I came to it, and 
 he very kindly ferried me over. It seemed to 
 me then, and I have often thought since, that 
 this spot where the Cuckmere falls, or rather 
 wanders, into the sea would make an ideal site 
 for a small seaside town. It has a southerly 
 aspect and is sheltered from the north-east and 
 east by Beachy Head and the intervening "Seven 
 Sisters," and from the north-west by other 
 downs. Indeed, it is a great pity that East- 
 bourne itself does not stand to the west rather 
 than the east of Beachy Head. 
 
 The postman charged me nothing for giving 
 me a lift in his boat, which was fortunate, as I 
 was penniless. On reaching the farther bank I 
 walked on some distance, when I came to a 
 large building where there were several forges 
 in full blast. Here I inquired my way to Sea- 
 ford, which I knew to be the next town on my 
 road. It was quite dark, so I suppose the smiths 
 were working overtime, or else a night-shift.
 
 44 GEORGE MEEK 
 
 They asked me what I was going to Seaford for; 
 I told them to look for work. They directed 
 me, and made a collection for me which amounted 
 to over five shillings. But they did n't offer me 
 a job. That night I slept upon a pile of iron 
 pipes beside a watchman's fire in Seaford. The 
 next morning I walked the few miles into New- 
 haven, where I wandered about the harbour and 
 the town. Failing to see or hear of a "Boy 
 Wanted" anywhere I foolishly spent my money 
 on a ticket to New Cross. I thought I should be 
 certain to succeed in London. 
 
 I had, perhaps, a penny or twopence left when 
 I reached town. I wandered about the rest of 
 the day, still looking for work. Tired and foot- 
 sore, I found myself on London Bridge at night, 
 and sitting down in one of the old alcoves I fell 
 asleep. Presently I awoke with a glare in my 
 eyes, to find myself surrounded by a small crowd 
 with a policeman standing over and shaking me. 
 I told them my father and mother were dead and 
 I had come to London to look for work. I sup- 
 pose, dressed as I was in a black velveteen jacket 
 and white cord trousers, I looked a strange sight 
 to them. Anyway, the policeman let me go, 
 and the people gave me enough money to buy a 
 supper and pay for a bed. 
 
 The next day I tramped about London look- 
 ing for work without success. At night some 
 fishmongers in a shop under one of the arch-
 
 GOING TO WORK 45 
 
 ways at Ludgate Hill Station gave me some 
 food and paid for my lodging. The next day 
 they directed me to a boys' home in Clapham 
 Road. I do not recollect much of my reception 
 there or what I thought of the place. The next 
 day I was sent out with a shoe-black's box to 
 stand under the archway at Clapham Road 
 Station. Then I was employed scrubbing and 
 cleaning in the house for nearly a fortnight. 
 The boys there seemed to me a very decent, well- 
 behaved lot, except one, an inveterate bully, who 
 was always tormenting the weaker ones. I stood 
 his bullying till I found it wearisome, then I hit 
 him over the head with a thick stick, cutting it 
 open and sending him howling to the superin- 
 tendent. I had given this superintendent my 
 mother's name and address, thinking, as she 
 was always finding fault with me, she would be 
 glad to let me stay in the home. However, 
 she was not, apparently, for I was sent back to 
 Eastbourne. 
 
 More situations followed my return, but the 
 next year I made my final bolt this time into 
 the country. When we moved into Eastbourne 
 in 1880 I was twelve years old. At the time of 
 my final exit from home I was fifteen. Though 
 I have seen much sorrow since, those three years 
 were decidedly the most unhappy I have ever 
 lived through. If my mother ever gave me a 
 kind word I do not remember it: I am sure she
 
 46 GEORGE MEEK 
 
 never gave me an affectionate one. While she 
 always treated me badly and petted my younger 
 brothers and our little sister, I was very fond of 
 them all three. When I left home Joe, the elder, 
 was nearly eleven, Arthur a chubby little chap 
 of seven, and Kate a little golden-haired fairy 
 of three. 
 
 As I remember, I used sometimes to have to 
 do very hard and even dangerous work push- 
 ing heavy tradesmen's trucks, carrying heavy 
 loads, and standing outside second- or third- 
 storey windows to clean them. But while all 
 my money was taken from me I was badly fed 
 and clothed. Once I was at work for a well-to-do 
 tradesman in Terminus Road; he was exceed- 
 ingly religious, so much so that he would not 
 allow his children to go to Christmas parties. 
 One day he set me to clean out the space in 
 front of the cellar window which was covered 
 by an iron grating in the pavement in front of 
 his shop window. Here I found about f ourpence 
 three-farthings in coppers, and got into trouble 
 because I stuck to it! He was a preacher for 
 one of the obscure sects which drone their mono- 
 tonous dirges (you can't call them "hymns") in 
 various holes and corners about the town. 
 
 I had few, if any, pleasures besides my read- 
 ing. On Sunday I attended the Congregational 
 School, where I was in Mr. Cripps' class. The 
 annual outing, usually at Pevensey Castle, used
 
 GOING TO WORK 47 
 
 to break the monotony of the year. There, for 
 one day, one could be a child and play again. 
 Apart from these great days and Mr. Cripps' 
 kindness to me, I remember little of the school, 
 except that when, after early lessons, the scholars 
 filled the centre of the large school-room to listen 
 to the superintendent's address, the boys down 
 one side, the girls down the other, the elder boys 
 who sat near the girls would point out the am- 
 biguous stories and passages in the Bible to 
 them, and they did n't seem to mind. Of this 
 school the late Mr. Neville Strange wa.s super- 
 intendent, and one of the teachers was a Mr. 
 Leonard who has since been very active in the 
 Socialist movement in the North. 
 
 During this period I first learned to smoke. 
 After my first attempt, which, although it made 
 me feel giddy, did not make me sick, I took to 
 it naturally, and I have been devoted to my pipe 
 ever since. I made no friends, except the sons 
 of a baker whom I sometimes helped when I had 
 no other work, in return for a few coppers. These 
 became very good friends, and employed me 
 regularly when I afterwards returned to East- 
 bourne. Most of the boys I got to know through 
 working with them were too filthy in their habits 
 and conversation to suit me, and I made no girl 
 friends; I was usually very badly dressed, and 
 unless I made a few coppers unknown to my 
 mother I never had any pocket money. And I
 
 48 GEORGE MEEK 
 
 was naturally very shy. I buried myself as much 
 as I could in my reading and my day-dreams to 
 escape the irksome realities of my everyday life. 
 Unless trouble was very acute and pressing I 
 could nearly always withdraw my mind from 
 my environment into a land of dreams a land 
 which was my very own, where great and glorious 
 things happened. This faculty I have enjoyed 
 ever since I can remember, though of late years 
 I find it less easy to detach myself from my sur- 
 roundings, and the visions I see are less vivid. 
 I suffered very much from toothache ; it was this, 
 I think, which led me to smoke, because the 
 tobacco deadened the pain.
 
 CHAPTER V 
 
 COUNTRY AND TOWN 
 
 IN the summer of 1883 my mother was taken 
 ill with consumption. I was out of employment 
 at the time, and though I did my best by trying 
 to keep the house clean for her and helping to 
 cook the meals, she became more irritable with 
 me than ever. One night towards the end of 
 August, having been out looking for work with- 
 out finding any, and coming home to a flood of 
 abuse and no supper, I quietly walked out again 
 and took to the road. 
 
 I walked to Stone's Cross that night. I met 
 some lads from the Gazette office on the way, 
 who gave me, I believe, some food and coppers, 
 and directed me to an empty house in which to 
 sleep. This cottage was about to be demolished. 
 Its windows had been taken out, and sleeping on 
 the bare boards in an upper room, I found it 
 anything but cheerful. Early the next morning 
 I was astir, and had reached Heathfield soon 
 after eight. Now I come to think of it, I fancy 
 the lads from the Gazette office must have given 
 
 4 49
 
 50 GEORGE MEEK 
 
 me at least a shilling, for I had enough money 
 to get some breakfast at Heathfield, and food 
 during the rest of the day at Mayfield and Rother- 
 field. After a long, lonely uphill walk through 
 Eridge Park, I reached Tunbridge Wells late in 
 the afternoon. Here I had a look round for a 
 job, then some supper and a bed at a common 
 lodging-house. It being nearly the end of August 
 this place was full of hop-pickers on their way to 
 the gardens. Among them was a little old shoe- 
 maker from Chelsea, whose acquaintance I made. 
 He advised me not to go into Kent, but to ac- 
 company him to a place he knew of near Wadhurst, 
 which I did. We started early the next morning 
 through a drizzly rain, eating blackberries we 
 picked from the hedgerows to eke out our scanty 
 provisions. Arrived at the farm, we were engaged, 
 and given an open cattle shed in which to sleep 
 among the straw. The next day we started 
 operations ; we had a bin between us, and were paid 
 at the rate of twopence a bushel for picking the 
 hops, which were very small. A small shopkeeper 
 let us have some bread, onions and other provisions 
 on credit, and the people at a cottage "windfall" 
 apples at a penny a gallon. Bread-and-butter 
 and tea for breakfast and supper, and bread-and- 
 cheese, with onions or apples, for dinner, with a 
 rasher or piece of steak fried over a gipsy fire 
 for a change on Sundays, formed our diet, and 
 I doubt if I ever enjoyed anything more heartily.
 
 COUNTRY AND TOWN 51 
 
 The people at this first farm were very quiet and 
 respectable. We had a fortnight there, when we 
 went to another at Mayfield, where we had 
 another fortnight. Here the pickers were a 
 rough lot from the purlieus of Edward Street, 
 Brighton, and there was a good deal of drinking, 
 fighting, and worse, going on, especially on 
 Saturday nights. It was a month's rare fun for 
 me, however. There was no one to nag at me, 
 and I earned ten or twelve shillings a week, which 
 I did what I liked with, as I had it all myself. 
 
 When we finished up at the farm we had a 
 good dinner of steak and fried onions at May- 
 field, and then, instead of trusting to our feet, 
 very foolishly paid our rail fare to Tunbridge 
 Wells. Here my companion left me, to go on 
 the drunk. The lodging-houses were all full on 
 account of the returning hoppers, so at last a 
 friendly policeman persuaded a lodging-house 
 keeper to let me sleep in their best bedroom. I 
 woke up feeling bad with a heavy cold, but 
 tramped through the rain to Sevenoaks, where I 
 picked up with a poor shiftless sort of a chap 
 who was also tramping to London, where I had 
 made up my mind to again try my luck, calling 
 at every baker's shop I came to to see if I could 
 get work. I had worked mostly in bakehouses. 
 If they could not give me work and they never 
 could or at least never did and I was hungry, I 
 asked them to give me a piece of bread. I never
 
 52 GEORGE MEEK 
 
 had the courage to beg at a private house, or else 
 my pride would not let me. But I knew if the 
 bakers cared to employ me I was more than 
 willing to work and could make myself useful 
 to them. 
 
 At last we came to Woolwich. Here we were 
 both "broke," and it was raining, so we made 
 use of the casual ward. 
 
 Personally, I do not believe in the traditional 
 hell, but there ought to be one with a very hot 
 place indeed for those who invented, administer 
 and perpetuate the casual ward. It is cruel and 
 inhuman; it is worse than prison. "The spike" 
 is too mild a name for it. 
 
 The next day I had four pounds of oakum to 
 pick, but I did n't pick all of it. They let me off 
 the following day, however, as I had never been 
 there before, and I have never been inside a 
 casual ward since. I would rather do something 
 to get myself locked up. I did n't mind the bath. 
 I needed it, and my clothes must have been in a 
 bad state through sleeping out. But I did object 
 to the plank bed, with only two coarse rugs, the 
 bread and "skilly" for breakfast and supper, the 
 bread and cheese and water for dinner, the lone- 
 liness of the cell night and day, but most of all 
 to the brutal manner of the officials. 
 
 That day I spent trying the bakers' shops 
 or the "Boy Wanted" notices for work in vain. 
 The night, though I was not hungry, I passed
 
 COUNTRY AND TOWN 53 
 
 wretchedly by walking about the streets. The 
 next morning, being down Whitechapel way, a 
 friendly policeman directed me to apply at a Home 
 near Charrington's Brewery, Mile End Road that 
 of the "Tower Hamlets Shoeblack Brigade." 
 They took me in and set me to work cleaning. 
 Then after a day or two they sent me out with a 
 shoeblack box. This was my first, but not last, 
 experience of the life of sorrow which depends 
 upon casual employment. I left this Home after 
 a week or two to go to another in Limehouse which 
 was connected with Dr. Barnado's. Here I stayed 
 till the following May, when a longing to return 
 home seized me, and I left it for Eastbourne. 
 
 I do not know if the same conditions obtain 
 in these Homes now. We went out with our 
 boxes every morning, and had to ''pay in" so 
 much at night for our stands. The sum varied 
 according to the stand. Thus one paid more for 
 the pitch at Stepney Station than the Burdett 
 Road one. My "pitches" were Burdett Road, 
 Canning Town Station, and the "Great Eastern" 
 at the corner of the East and West India Dock 
 Roads. If we did not "book in" the money 
 they charged they used to threaten to turn us 
 out. Besides our beds and boxes, they gave us, 
 I believe, tea and bread-and-butter for breakfast 
 on Sundays. I forget about the rest of the 
 week, except that we always had to buy our own 
 dinners. I do not think, on the whole, we fared
 
 54 GEORGE MEEK 
 
 so badly. I liked most of the boys, and they 
 treated me well. I liked, too, the bustle and life 
 of the streets. I was deeply interested in the 
 strange faces and dresses of the Asiatic sailors in 
 the West India Dock Road. 
 
 We were marched on Sunday mornings to 
 Limehouse Church. The rest of the day we had 
 to ourselves. I used to spend the afternoons 
 as a rule walking round the docks looking at the 
 shipping. Once or twice when I had had a good 
 day I took a night off and went to a music-hall or 
 theatre. I was at "Lusby's" now the "Para- 
 gon," Mile End Road the night before it was 
 burnt down. My first experience of the theatre 
 was at the Pavilion, Whitechapel. On these occa- 
 sions I climbed over the area railings and slept in 
 the coal-cellar, giving as an excuse the next morning 
 that I had been to Islington or some other distant 
 part after a job. I always got off with a scold- 
 ing. I met with no serious trouble while I was 
 there. 
 
 Part of the time I was employed delivering 
 circulars and carrying sandwich-boards. With 
 one pair of the latter I wandered for some weeks 
 about the streets of Stepney and Mile End. 
 Other times I was employed scrubbing and 
 cleaning about the house. One day, while so 
 employed, I tried to ride an old "ordinary" bike 
 belonging to the master, Mr. Hawkins, round 
 the back yard. The back wheel came off, throw-
 
 COUNTRY AND TOWN 55 
 
 ing me over on my head. As I remember him, 
 this Mr. Hawkins was not at all bad to the boys. 
 We enjoyed a great amount of liberty more 
 than boys are usually given in such places, and 
 far more than they would get in the workhouse, 
 and it must be remembered that liberty is just 
 as dear to the lad of fourteen or fifteen as it is to 
 the man of forty or fifty. Of course, we were 
 taught nothing. The Home was, I believe, re- 
 garded as a temporary shelter for lads who were 
 too old for the Stepney Causeway Homes bar- 
 rack-like places we regarded with more or less 
 contempt and too young for the Youths' Labour 
 Home in Commercial Road. The latter place 
 has been provided for older lads, who are event- 
 ually drafted to the Grimsby or Yarmouth fishing 
 fleet or sent to Canada, where many of them have 
 done very well. 
 
 None of these institutions deals really adequately 
 with the homeless boy. Some of them are really 
 nothing but private workhouses maintained by 
 voluntary subscriptions, in which the inmates 
 are so many little slaves and prisoners, treated 
 approximately like convicts. That they exist at 
 all is owing to the fact that they provide well- 
 paid berths for a few officials. I know that one 
 of the founders of such an institution, having 
 failed in his profession, started a "Boys' Home" 
 without a half -penny of his own to bless himself 
 with. Being a fluent ranter, and possessing
 
 56 GEORGE MEEK 
 
 some business ability, he built up a great con- 
 cern, and long before his death was able to take 
 expensive apartments in the most fashionable 
 part of Eastbourne for himself and family for 
 their summer holidays. 
 
 Some of the "Homes" especially the shoe- 
 black variety are simply run to exploit the poor 
 boys who are driven into them. I had some 
 experience of two of these places, besides the 
 "Union Jack" in Limehouse. One was near 
 the Mile End Road, the other in Leman Street, 
 from both of which I was turned into the street 
 because I failed to earn the stipulated sum to 
 pay for box, bed, breakfast and supper. To the 
 Leman Street "Home" I had to pay tenpence 
 per day for a pitch in a draughty passage in 
 Fenchurch Street, where, if I remember rightly, 
 I earned less than sixpence. 
 
 At the same time, these places offer a refuge 
 for the homeless lad who has a very proper scorn 
 and dread of the provision made for him by his 
 hard foster-mother the State in the workhouse. 
 No doubt many boys, sharper and more fortunate 
 than I, have, making these places stepping-stones 
 to better things, been saved from lives of degrada- 
 tion and crime. Whatever their failings, they 
 leave the boy a great amount of liberty to develop 
 his individuality in his own way, and to use his 
 initiative when opportunity occurs. 
 
 There were boys of every description in the
 
 57 
 
 one at Limehouse, in which I spent nine months 
 mostly healthy, clean-minded, "manly" boys; 
 and though those who wanted to used to smoke 
 when they had the chance, and one or two of the 
 bolder spirits occasionally rose to the enormity 
 of a glass of "four ale," I do not remember that 
 any of them abused their freedom. 
 
 Before leaving these London experiences, there 
 is one incident I must record with pleasure and 
 gratitude to the stranger who figures in it. I 
 was standing outside an A. B. C. shop in Lud- 
 gate Circus one night, homeless and penniless, 
 gazing wistfully at the food in the window, for 
 I was very hungry. While I was doing so a 
 young man came up to me and asked me if I 
 was hungry. "I am that!" I said. He gave me 
 sixpence, which bought me supper and paid for 
 a night's lodging. He went his way, and pro- 
 bably forgot his kind impulse in a little while. I 
 wish I could see him now that I have some power 
 of self-expression to tell him what his sixpence 
 meant to me. It was so much more than six- 
 pence. Whoever he was, I hope fate has dealt 
 kindly with him. 
 
 I am not certain whether it was during my stay 
 in London this time, or later, but I fancy it was 
 later, that I used to see William Morris address- 
 ing the Socialist meetings at the Dodd Street 
 end of Burdett Road. If I had only known! 
 but I was at the time under the influence of some
 
 58 GEORGE MEEK 
 
 revivalists, and we used to walk, like the priest 
 and Levite, on the other side. This is a digres- 
 sion, but digressions are inevitable, because I 
 am not writing a romance in which the incidents 
 are all cut and dried, and their orderly narration 
 inevitable. I am trying, in spite of my imperfect 
 gifts and my limited experience in the art of 
 writing, to set down a human life for you. 
 
 Then the spring came, with May sunshine and 
 the call of the fields and country lanes. Besides, 
 I had not written to or received a letter from 
 Eastbourne, and I wondered how they were all 
 getting on. I told Mr. Hawkins I thought I 
 should like to go back home and try for work 
 at the baking. To my surprise, I found there 
 was eight and sixpence due to me possibly part 
 payment for the scrubbing, sandwich-boards or 
 bill-distributing. At all events, I was glad of it. 
 If I remember rightly, both Mr. Hawkins and 
 the boys were sorry to lose me.
 
 CHAPTER VI 
 
 BACK TO EASTBOURNE 
 
 MY eight and sixpence carried me nicely to 
 Eastbourne. I was not so foolish as to take a 
 ticket direct. For one thing, I wanted a quiet 
 walk in the country where I could think: from 
 London to Eastbourne without an hour or two's 
 reflection seemed out of the question. Besides, 
 I wanted to have as much money as possible 
 when I got there as, perhaps, a peace offering, or 
 at any rate to stand by me a day or two. But 
 I wanted to get well away from London at once, 
 so I enriched the London, Brighton & South 
 Coast Railway to the extent of the price of a 
 third-class ticket to Croydon, whence I jogged 
 merrily along to Cuckfield where I put up for 
 the night at a roadside inn. Though I must 
 have been very tired indeed I could not sleep 
 for a long time on account of the perfect still- 
 ness. For nine months in the Home at Lime- 
 house I had slept soundly with the clang of 
 tram-car bells in my ears till midnight and the 
 rumble of passing dock trains every few minutes 
 
 59
 
 60 GEORGE MEEK 
 
 all night long (the Home stands within a few 
 yards of a branch line of the Great Eastern 
 Railway), and the sudden change from din to 
 absolute quiet was not conducive to early repose. 
 However, I slept at last, and rising in the morn- 
 ing had a good wash out in the fresh country air 
 and walked to Lewes, from which I took train to 
 Polegate. 
 
 My grandmother and an aunt and uncle still 
 lived at Willingdon. I went to my aunt's, and 
 she told me my mother was dead. My grand- 
 mother was sent for, and burst into tears on see- 
 ing me. It seems all sorts of tales had got afloat 
 about me: I had been in prison, been killed, and 
 I don't know what else. From Willingdon I 
 walked into Eastbourne to look up my old friends 
 the Strettons, the people who kept the baker's 
 shop, whose sons were good to me. I found 
 Ernest, one of them, washing the pavement down 
 in front of his aunt's house in High Street. I 
 went home with him and they gave me some tea 
 and asked me to look round at the bakehouse 
 on the Monday morning. I returned to East- 
 bourne on a Saturday. Then I went to our old 
 home in Susan's Road, where I found our lodgers 
 a plasterer turned bathchair-man and his wife 
 had taken the house and that the cabman had a 
 room with them. I saw my little sister, whom 
 they were caring for, and learned that my brothers 
 had been sent to the workhouse. I saw Joe once
 
 BACK TO EASTBOURNE 61 
 
 afterwards, just before he was going away to a 
 Home at Melton Bryan in Bedfordshire, and it 
 made my heart ache to see the little chap in his 
 workhouse uniform. He cried bitterly on seeing 
 me, and oh ! how deeply I grieved to think I could 
 not take him and Arthur out of the loathed bastile 
 and care for them myself! I never saw Arthur 
 again. They were both eventually sent to Canada, 
 and I am glad to say are doing well, Joe being in 
 steady employment at good wages near Seattle 
 and Arthur being "depot agent" at Sandridge, 
 Minn., on the Great North Railway. 
 
 I put up at the Rising Sun, Seaside, that night 
 and during the next week. On the Sunday 
 I saw the cabman, who expostulated with me for 
 running away. I told him I would rather run 
 away twenty times than be sent to the work- 
 house. He had an American trunk and several 
 other things belonging to me, but he refused to 
 give them up. Later he inherited some money 
 and bought a horse and cab of his own. He 
 was always saying that when this money came 
 he would help my brothers but not me: we none 
 of us had a pennyworth of help from him. It 
 was at this time I discovered that he and my 
 mother had not been married, and I certainly 
 would not have accepted anything from him, I 
 was so angry about it. 
 
 Later he lived with another woman, who made 
 my poor sister's life during her childhood as
 
 62 GEORGE MEEK 
 
 much a burden to her as mine had been to me. 
 The little golden-haired fairy has grown into a 
 big, dark woman now; she is married and has 
 many children. 
 
 I went to the bakehouse on the Monday morn- 
 ing and was engaged regularly at a small salary. 
 Previously the two elder sons had done the work, 
 employing a journeyman; on my return I found 
 Ernest, the second son, anxious to give up baking 
 to become a carpenter, so I suppose I took his 
 place, and he was apprenticed to Alfred Bore, his 
 maternal uncle. Frank, the third son, whom I 
 first met at the Gazette office (where, I believe, he 
 was to have been trained as a journalist), also went 
 in for the plane and chisel instead: the youngest, 
 Walter, having just left school, joined us in the 
 bakehouse: the journeyman had been dismissed. 
 
 In Horace Stretton, the eldest son, I had a 
 good friend. A tall thin young man, he did not 
 enjoy very robust health; and, if everything 
 one hears of his younger days is true, he was one 
 of the gayest of a gay set of fairly well-to-do 
 young men about town at that time. He, 
 like all the Strettons, was very intelligent, taking 
 a keen interest in books, as well as other things. 
 He was an ardent volunteer, as was also his 
 brother Frank, and rose to be, I believe, sergeant- 
 major in the 2nd R. S. V. B. A. The second son, 
 Ernest, was much quieter, greatly addicted to the 
 harp and mandoline, which he played well. Of
 
 BACK TO EASTBOURNE 63 
 
 Frank, the third son, I did not see much (he 
 never worked in the bakehouse) ; but the youngest, 
 Walter, was there with me a great deal, as he 
 mostly took charge of the shop during the day 
 while Horace was out with the horse and cart 
 delivering the bread. Like a good many younger 
 sons, Walter was the best business man of the 
 family. 
 
 To write the history of this family is practic- 
 ally to write the history of Eastbourne for a 
 hundred years. Early in the nineteenth century 
 the town consisted of one large village now 
 known as "Old Town" and what one might 
 call three small hamlets. Going from the Old 
 Town, which lies in a kind of recess in the hills, 
 through Compton Place Road, the old coach 
 road, and passing Compton Place itself, then 
 the residence of the Earls of Burlington, now 
 one of the many country seats belonging to the 
 Dukes of Devonshire, one came to the village 
 of Meads, nestling close under Beachy Head. 
 There is a tradition that no one ever died at 
 Meads in those days. It comprised then a farm- 
 house or two, a few cottages occupied by farm 
 hands and fishermen, and a row occupied by 
 coastguards. In front of these, which stood on 
 the site at present occupied by the Convalescent 
 Home, there was a stretch of allotment gardens 
 reaching to the edge of the cliffs, with one or 
 two old cottages in one corner. These gardens
 
 64 GEORGE MEEK 
 
 were cultivated by the coastguards, about one of 
 whom a story is told. He had dug a plot of 
 ground up close to the edge of the cliff in which 
 he wished to plant cabbages, when he found he had 
 left his cabbage plants behind at home, so he 
 went indoors to get them. When he returned 
 with them the plot he had dug was gone. There 
 had been a landslip. 
 
 At the foot of the slope from Beachy Head, 
 towards the marsh on the main coach road, stood 
 South Bourne, a hamlet of a few houses and an 
 inn or two, much used, if tradition is reliable, 
 in the olden times by smugglers. It is now 
 almost entirely swept away and is occupied by 
 South Street. The Town Hall at the top occupies 
 the site of the old stocks bank, so that offenders 
 against the majesty of the law were conducted to 
 the same spot in olden times as they are still. 
 
 Near the sea, at the east end of the present town, 
 were a few fishermen's cottages, with some better 
 houses used by the few summer visitors who 
 ventured so far from London. 
 
 In those days the grandfather of the young 
 men I worked with was apparently the sole car- 
 penter, wheelwright and undertaker in the place. 
 He occupied a large house in High Street, which 
 had a lion over the porch, from which it took its 
 name, and workshops at the rear in which, even 
 in my time, were many quaint old appliances of 
 his trade, besides some valuable old chests which
 
 BACK TO EASTBOURNE 65 
 
 were then used as corn-bins! The old gentle- 
 man lived in this house till his death at the ripe 
 old age of ninety-six. The lords of the manor 
 had always been anxious to acquire the property, 
 which was his own freehold; since the death of 
 a daughter, or daughters, to whom, I believe, 
 he bequeathed it, they have acquired it, and it is 
 now demolished. 
 
 His son, the father of my friends, was a gentle, 
 quiet old gentleman a bit, I believe, of an in- 
 valid. I am afraid he was not a great business 
 man. He formerly owned a mill near Folkington, 
 which was burnt down when I was a boy at 
 Jevington. I saw the reflection of the fire in the 
 sky, little thinking I should know its owner and 
 his family so intimately in after years. It stood 
 in ruins for a great while and was sold at last for 
 a mere song. The family seemed to have a good 
 deal of property in various parts of the country, 
 but for some reason or other they did not appear 
 to look after it much. 
 
 My friends lived with their father and mother 
 in two copyhold cottages they had near the Star 
 brewery. These two cottages had been con- 
 verted into one, a shop window replacing the 
 window of one of them. At the back was a 
 largeish garden surrounded by hothouses con- 
 taining grape-vines and peaches, which were the 
 father's special care. Years ago, he told me, 
 he used to grow for Covent Garden market
 
 66 GEORGE MEEK 
 
 and make very good prices indeed. When I 
 first knew him his grapes (Black Hamburg, I 
 believe they were called) fetched 2s. 6d. and 
 3-s. per pound, and the peaches 3^., qd. and 6d. 
 each. He did little or nothing else besides look 
 after these hothouses. 
 
 The mother was a cheerful, bustling busi- 
 ness woman. There was also a sister a girl 
 in short frocks when I returned to Eastbourne. 
 I forget whether it was one or two nights a week 
 I was privileged to go up there to tea (the bake- 
 house was in South Street), but it was one or 
 the other. Indeed, for a good many years I 
 spent many happy evenings there, even after I 
 left their employment, and I used to delight to 
 hear the old gentleman's stories of old times 
 and old people in Eastbourne: of the lady of the 
 manor, Mrs. Gilbert, who, with a Major Willard, 
 the magistrate of that day, ruled the town; of the 
 time of the Chartist rising, when the farmers, 
 shopkeepers and other well-to-do people stood or 
 slept behind barred and bolted doors with guns 
 loaded, expecting a raid by the peasantry. Bless 
 their timid hearts! the English peasantry forgot 
 how to rise hundreds of years ago. 
 
 Sometimes a friend of Ernest would drop in 
 and there would be music the harp and mando- 
 line coming into play. They were both very 
 old instruments: the harp, which Ernest put into 
 repair himself, a big, very mellow one; the mando-
 
 BACK TO EASTBOURNE 67 
 
 line a flat-backed Italian one with an open-work 
 copper cover to the sounding hole and a queerly 
 shaped head, from which the instrument had to 
 be tuned with a key like that of a watch. They 
 had a very old violin, too, which had been in 
 the family from time immemorial. A competent 
 violinist whom I took to look at it pronounced 
 it a Guarnerius. Ernest, who now occupies his 
 father's old home, has all these instruments still, 
 I believe. The old house is but little changed, but 
 the garden and greenhouses are gone. Tomb- 
 stones are now made where grapes used to grow. 
 And all the rest are gone except Ernest: Horace 
 is in Gloucester, Frank in London, Walter has a 
 flourishing business of his own in the town; but 
 the father and mother and the daughter, of whom 
 they were all so fond, have gone to their last 
 rest. 
 
 Besides the nights in the house there used to 
 be afternoons and evenings in the garden, when 
 I and Walter used to get into mischief and some- 
 times quarrel, and Mrs. Stretton used to declare 
 she "would not have that George Meek up there 
 any more." I and Walter were about of an age. 
 In one corner there was a furnace underground, 
 by means of which the houses were heated in the 
 winter. Above this an old cabinet containing 
 curious old carpenter's tools, among them many 
 narrow moulding planes of different patterns. 
 Out in the open garden, between the hothouses
 
 68 GEORGE MEEK 
 
 which surrounded it, were old bureaux of walnut 
 or mahogany standing exposed to all weathers. 
 
 Once or twice they made wine out of the prun- 
 ings the shoots and superfluous grapes of the 
 vines. They told me it was excellent, though 
 I don't remember tasting it myself. They kept it 
 in large stone bottles; one of these, being too 
 tightly corked, exploded one night and they 
 thought the house had blown down. They kept 
 three dogs: a big lurcher bitch, a little brown 
 spaniel named Shot, after Shotover, the winner 
 of the Derby, which was my special favourite, and 
 Bob, a little toy black-and-tan at least he was 
 supposed to be little, but he had grown so fat 
 on good living he could hardly walk. 
 
 While I worked for them, and for many years 
 afterwards, this place stood to me instead of a 
 home. Whenever I was in trouble and needed 
 advice, or had good news to tell, I always went 
 straight there. I never slept in the house. When 
 I returned from London after staying a week at 
 the Rising Sun, which I found too expensive, I 
 went to lodge with a friend of my grandmother at 
 Lower Willingdon, walking the two or three miles 
 between, night and morning. There I stayed 
 all that summer, but when the bad weather set 
 in I took lodgings in the town. 
 
 I was employed in their South Street bake- 
 house for about fifteen months. We did not begin 
 very early, about seven A.M., when we had to
 
 BACK TO EASTBOURNE 69 
 
 make and bake the bread. I have often heard 
 of alum being used in the making of bread, but I 
 have never seen a grain of it in any bakehouse in 
 which I have worked. Our bread was made in 
 the old-fashioned way, with yeast made by 
 ourselves from malt and hops. Each morning, 
 with the bread, a large boiler was put into the 
 oven. This contained small potatoes, covered 
 with water. When they were taken out the water 
 was strained off and the potatoes were mashed 
 in a tub with a large wooden pestle. They were 
 then mixed with warm water, and a quantity of the 
 home-made yeast mixed with flour was added. 
 This, called the "comp," was allowed to stand 
 till night, by which time it had risen and nearly 
 filled the tub, the top of it appearing like the 
 flowers of broccoli. It was then strained into the 
 trough, more warm water and flour were added, 
 and this formed the "sponge." This, which, 
 when we left it at night, would be hardly more 
 than a quarter of the way up the sides of the 
 trough, by morning would have risen nearly to 
 the top, when it had to be "broken up" with 
 warm water into a thin batter, and more flour 
 being then added, the dough proper was made. 
 This was allowed to rise, and then, being taken out 
 of the trough, weighed into two pound two ounce 
 portions, which were moulded into the familiar 
 forms in which bread is sold. The rest of the 
 day, after the bread had been dispatched to the
 
 70 GEORGE MEEK 
 
 customers, was spent in making cakes and pastry 
 and cleaning up. Everything in this, as in most 
 bakehouses in which I have worked, was kept 
 scrupulously clean. I much preferred the mak- 
 ing of "small goods": it did not require so much 
 muscle as bread-making. Latterly this depart- 
 ment was left almost entirely to me, and once or 
 twice I spoilt a baking through getting absorbed 
 in some book. 
 
 When we were working together in the morn- 
 ing we enlivened the time by singing and tell- 
 ing tales. Occasionally we varied the monotony 
 with practical jokes. The bakehouse was partly 
 underground. It faced the street, an iron grat- 
 ing covering a brick-paved recess where was a 
 water-tap and shelves for keeping butter and 
 such things cool. The door between the bake- 
 house and this recess rose some eighteen inches 
 above the level of the pavement, so that we 
 always had a good view of the street. One boy 
 a butcher's boy, I think who used to pass 
 frequently, annoyed Horace very much by the 
 slip-shod way in which he walked, scraping his 
 hob-nailed boots over the pavement and espe- 
 cially over our grating. One day he jumped up 
 on an old gallon measure covered with a thick 
 piece of wood, which we used to stand upon to 
 look out into the street, and called the lad back. 
 " Hi ! " he said. The boy turned round. "Here ! " 
 he said; "I want you." "What d' ye want?"
 
 BACK TO EASTBOURNE 71 
 
 said the boy, coming back. "Does the parish 
 find you in boots?" asked Horace. The boy 
 answered something saucy, so a day or two later 
 he got a neatly rolled piece of dough under his ear 
 which had been sent from a long section of gas- 
 piping we kept as a "dough" shooter. This was 
 a frequent experience of some of our acquaintances; 
 we knew every one in the street. The upper part 
 of our bakehouse door was filled in with small 
 panes of glass, one of which had a small hole in 
 the corner. 
 
 I and Walter were left in charge of the bake- 
 house and the shop overhead during the latter 
 part of the day. Here some of the girls of the 
 neighbourhood used to visit us occasionally, but 
 though the conversation was sometimes pretty 
 free nothing improper ever occurred, and for my 
 part, though I suppose they were passable girls, 
 I did not fancy any of them. 
 
 In the autumn, my wages having been raised, 
 I took lodgings in a large house in York Road, 
 so as to be nearer my work. It was kept by a 
 very old lady, who made her living by letting to 
 unmarried working men. There were about a 
 dozen of us, railwaymen, ostlers employed at 
 Weston's and other stables, saddlers, and so 
 forth. Some time previous to my stay there she 
 had lost nearly all the young men who were 
 lodging with her at the time by one sad accident. 
 Eleven of them had taken a large boat one Sunday
 
 72 GEORGE MEEK 
 
 morning for a trip ; a sudden squall overturned it, 
 and only one of them reached the shore alive. 
 In my time a young man named Smith, the son 
 of a Kentish paper-maker, met with a serious 
 accident at the railway station, where he was 
 employed as "lampey." Part of his duty con- 
 sisted in changing the lamps in the carriages when 
 trains ran into Eastbourne. Trying to climb a 
 coach one day while the train was still in motion, 
 he missed his footing and was run over, losing one 
 leg. He was a clever chap, and had made two or 
 three model locomotives and electric batteries. 
 
 Here, during the winter, we spent many lively 
 evenings, playing cribbage, don, euchre, or some- 
 times, for a change, "tippet," a variation of the 
 game of "cod 'em," which Jack Jones not he of 
 West Ham, but the Covent Garden porter of that 
 name made famous by Albert Chevalier was 
 said to be very good at. This is eminently a 
 game for six, eight, ten, or even twelve, people to 
 play, and is very popular amongst working people. 
 Having chosen your sides, which must be of an 
 equal number of players, one of them is selected 
 to "work the piece" on each side. This "piece" 
 may consist of a farthing or some small coin, or a 
 button. The "worker" who, by the familiar 
 method of "tossing," wins the piece and, so to 
 speak, first innings for his party, taps it sharply 
 on the table and proceeds to hide it in one of the 
 hands of one of the players on his side, which have
 
 BACK TO EASTBOURNE 73 
 
 previously been placed as nearly as possible 
 all together in his lap under the table. He then 
 calls "Up!" and all the hands are placed clenched 
 on the table. Beginning with the right-hand 
 man, each player on the other side takes it in 
 turn to try to "fetch the piece home" by guess- 
 ing in which of the hands it is hidden. He may 
 point out a certain hand and cry "Piece!" at 
 once if he chooses to do so, or he may tell those 
 on the opposite side to take their right or left 
 hands away, or any individual player both of 
 his. If any of these contains the "piece" he 
 has, of course, lost it, but if he says "Piece!" to 
 the hand which contains it or orders all the 
 other hands off he has won it. The "worker" 
 on his side proceeds to hide it and the rdles are 
 reversed. Every time the "piece" remains with 
 the side who has it they score one. A cribbage 
 board is used, twenty-one or thirty-one being the 
 game. In "cod *em" you may use any tricky 
 phrase to induce your opponents to reveal where 
 the "piece" is hidden; in "tippet" only these two: 
 "Piece" or "Take it away." If the "piece" is 
 accidentally dropped on the floor while it is being 
 "worked" the side which has dropped it loses it. 
 With the exception of one lodger, who soon 
 had to find fresh quarters, none of the men came 
 home the worse for drink, though now and then a 
 good deal of "small" beer was consumed. They 
 were a pretty happy lot, and we had some lively
 
 74 GEORGE MEEK 
 
 evenings. They were easily led, I imagine, as 
 while when one young man came who was ultra- 
 religious and insisted on preaching to them and 
 having "Sankey and Moody" every night, most of 
 them "got religion" slightly for a time. When 
 another man, a clever, studious house-painter from 
 Nottingham, who had lived previously in London, 
 where he had frequently attended secular lectures, 
 came to live with us and preached the militant 
 atheism of those days, they were just as ready 
 to listen to him. He was a tall, dark man, who 
 had studied and travelled much. His favourite 
 reading at that time was Taylor's Astronomical- 
 Theological Discourses, long passages from which 
 he would quote to us. He was also intimate with 
 other branches of learning, and would keep the 
 others interested for hours by his long discourses 
 of plant or animal life, astronomy, geology or the 
 wonders of chemistry. He occupied the same 
 room as myself, and we had long talks together. I 
 had from my earliest years found great difficulty in 
 getting to sleep early at night, so that it was no 
 hardship for me to lie awake and talk, and, indeed, 
 long after he had gone to sleep I used to lie awake 
 pondering over what he had told me. 
 
 My people had been Church of England to 
 the extent that they conformed to that com- 
 munion when attendance at a place of worship 
 appeared to them imperative: that is to say at 
 christenings, confirmations, weddings and funerals
 
 BACK TO EASTBOURNE 75 
 
 of members of the family. Otherwise I never 
 remember them attending any place of worship. 
 Beyond being obliged to repeat the usual little 
 child's prayers and hymns when very young, I 
 had no religious teaching at home. I am of 
 opinion that the "gentry and clergy" were usually 
 regarded as our natural enemies. I know the 
 parson was usually spoken of with more or less 
 derision. Canon Lowe was an exception. 
 
 In spite of my school attainments in "scrip- 
 ture knowledge," I am afraid my ideas of religion 
 were extremely vague. I never remember to 
 have had any fear of hell, but I liked to think 
 of some supermundane power which could be 
 called upon to help in times of trouble, or when 
 one wanted anything very badly and could not 
 see one's way to get it by ordinary means, and this 
 conception of the Deity I found it hard to part 
 with. It was fully a week before I came round to 
 my agnostic friend's views, but I have held them 
 with occasional lapses, of which I hope to treat in 
 a future chapter, ever since. 
 
 When the warmer days came the parades and 
 the young women to be found there claimed 
 my fellow lodgers' attention. There were a few 
 humorous adventures with servant girls, with 
 no particular harm in them, in which I partici- 
 pated, and I had one or two experiences of my 
 own. There was one girl in service at East- 
 bourne whom I met at my grandmother's at
 
 76 GEORGE MEEK 
 
 Willingdon one Sunday afternoon. I always 
 spent my Sundays with my grandmother while 
 she remained at Willingdon and I was in East- 
 bourne. I took a passing fancy to this girl, and 
 we walked back into the town together; but I 
 was too modest to suit her, and she gave me up. 
 Apart from the fact that at sixteen the age I 
 had reached by this time a lad is rather suscepti- 
 ble to the charms of the fair, I had always been 
 naturally of an affectionate, not to say amorous, 
 disposition, yet I contracted no striking regard 
 for any one girl at this time. When I did fall in 
 love later it was with a vengeance! 
 
 I have always liked to live what I call a "full" 
 life, that is to say, one not confined to a single 
 interest. In addition to reading, of which I 
 was always fond, and these flirtations, I became 
 an ardent politician once more. At the bake- 
 house I met another Radical of the Reynolds' 
 type. He lodged in the house over the shop 
 in South Street, which was sub-let, and spent 
 many hours preaching the gospel of advanced 
 Radical-Republicanism to us, though I am afraid 
 I was his only disciple. I still used to see the 
 shoemaker at Willingdon on Sundays, and borrow 
 books of him, so that between the two I became 
 well grounded in their faith. A wave of reform 
 was sweeping the country, the agitation for the 
 extension of the franchise was at its height, and we 
 all expected great things. The Franchise and
 
 BACK TO EASTBOURNE 77 
 
 Redistribution Bills were passed by the Gladstone 
 ministry in the same year. I do not remember 
 attending any political meetings, except one at 
 the Devonshire Park, where the late Lord Edward 
 Cavendish made what I considered a poor halting 
 speech, nor did I read Reynolds' myself very 
 regularly ; but I was imbued with a sense of class- 
 consciousness, which has intensified since, and I 
 thought, with so many others, that the Liberals 
 were going to do such wonders for the working 
 people. The wonders we expected are still to 
 be accomplished, and most of us have now found 
 a new party and new associations. Life is short, 
 and one is weary of being always fed upon an 
 east-wind diet of empty promises. 
 
 This period was a very happy one. I had 
 my liberty, as much money as was good for 
 me, and with the exception of three days when 
 I was laid up with a very severe cold I enjoyed 
 good health. I was subject to those very heavy 
 colds, the kind which make one feel nearly dead, 
 all the time I worked indoors. I was not badly 
 dressed; Horace Stretton, who always took a 
 pride in dressing well, gave me several things he 
 had outgrown. When I was in the "Home" in 
 London we used to go to Stepney Causeway (to 
 the principal Home) for our clothing, which was 
 debited to us, and we had to pay for it out of our 
 earnings. 
 
 In 1885, the Strettons' trade having fallen off,
 
 78 GEORGE MEEK 
 
 I was discharged at the end of the summer season. 
 I am afraid they were all rather too easy-going 
 to be "good business people." The amounts 
 some of their poor customers owed them and 
 most of their customers were poor were sur- 
 prising. As I am not convinced that people are 
 rewarded or punished 'In any future life for the 
 good or ill they do in this, I am glad to take this 
 opportunity of expressing my appreciation and 
 gratitude to this family for their kindness towards 
 myself. If I had only been stronger and they 
 more prosperous in their business, I could not 
 have desired a happier life than one spent in their 
 employment. 
 
 During this period I went to the theatre occa- 
 sionally with "passes" given us for displaying 
 the bills in the shop. I remember seeing Dion 
 Boucicault's Flying Scud, besides various other 
 melodramas. I fancy it must have been about 
 this time that the Gilbert and Sullivan operas were 
 put on the road, but though some of them were 
 put on at the newly-opened Theatre Royal I did 
 not see any of them. Melodrama was my only 
 attraction, and I doubt if I should have appreciated 
 either the fine music of Sullivan or the, if possible, 
 finer wit of Gilbert. On the parades the enter- 
 tainments seem to me to have been better and 
 more varied than they are now. There was, I 
 particularly remember, a troupe of real negroes 
 who had been stranded in the town by the break-up
 
 BACK TO EASTBOURNE 79 
 
 of an Uncle Tom's Cabin company. They were 
 such good singers and comedians and gave us such 
 lovely real plantation songs that I have never 
 cared for the artificial kind since.
 
 CHAPTER VII 
 
 LONDON AND NEW YORK 
 
 FINDING I could get no other employment in 
 Eastbourne, the roving spirit took hold of me, 
 and I tramped to Brighton, a distance of twenty- 
 five miles. Here I stayed for a week, lodging 
 at a comfortable coffee-shop, but I could get no 
 work. So I went on to London. 
 
 I spent two or three days tramping round, and 
 the nights in the streets. Homeless, penniless, 
 hungry, I walked about looking at the closed 
 blinds and shutters, envying every one who had 
 work to do and a bed to sleep on. At last I 
 obtained work in a wood-chopping yard in the 
 East End. I began by helping to carry the 
 sawn blocks from the machine shed to the chop- 
 pers, but the sawyer having an accident, cutting 
 off a thumb and finger, and the others being 
 afraid to tackle the job, I was asked to do so. 
 This I did. They said I should have my head cut 
 off before long. But I operated the saw for some 
 months, with only a slight scratch on the back of 
 my thumb which hardly drew blood. It was 
 
 80
 
 LONDON AND NEW YORK 81 
 
 hard, tedious work standing in the same place and 
 doing the same thing for ten hours a day. There 
 were about a hundred and twenty men and boys 
 employed there then. I was in London in 1895, 
 when the manager told me the number of hands 
 had been reduced to forty owing to the competition 
 of the Salvation Army "elevators." Comment! 
 
 I had been corresponding for some time with 
 a brother of my grandmother who lived at War- 
 saw, Wyoming County, New York. He wished 
 to get me out there, so he sent me a prepaid 
 passage ticket from London to his place. 
 
 The 1885 election was about this time, but I 
 took little interest in it: I used to be too tired 
 to take much interest in anything. 
 
 I left Euston on a wet evening, arriving in 
 Liverpool about midnight. Here I embarked 
 for New York. I was fearfully sick for the first 
 two or three days. We were all herded together 
 in the steerage, packed like herrings in a barrel, 
 sleeping twenty-four in a cabin. There were 
 people of all nationalities on board even two 
 Turks. The life of the ship, after we had found 
 our sea-legs, was a Jew who could yodel "Sweet 
 Violets," and an eccentric Irishman who sang 
 night and day. "The Wanderer from Clare" 
 was his favourite song. 
 
 We had fog for three days on the Banks of 
 Newfoundland, the foghorn going night and 
 day. The voyage took us ten days and a half.
 
 82 GEORGE MEEK 
 
 The vessel was the City of Richmond, the same 
 in which, I found afterwards, a cousin of mine 
 had crossed. The food was plentiful and good. 
 The only things I disliked were the boiled meat 
 and the fish on Fridays. When we, much to our 
 relief, reached New York, I was greatly struck 
 with the river steamers with their machinery on 
 deck. The river was full of half melted ice and 
 snow. At Castle Garden they passed me, though 
 I had only about a dollar in my pocket, because I 
 was booked through to friends; this in spite of 
 my eyes. 
 
 I did not see much of New York City. I was 
 struck most by the hideous overhead railways, 
 with their noise and dust, and the ferry which 
 was like the section of a street, with vans, 'buses 
 and other traffic standing on it. I was on top 
 of a 'bus, but could not see the river for the high 
 bulwarks. At Jersey City "depot" I first tasted 
 American "pie." It was a round, plate-shaped 
 piece of pastry, well lined with apples or pump- 
 kin I forget which and cost me five cents. 
 Another five cents procured me two ounces of 
 very good fine-cut tobacco. Of this I was very 
 glad. The tobacco I had bought on the steamer 
 for ninepence the half-pound was a hard slab of 
 cake cavendish which had to be cut up for smok- 
 ing, and was rather too strong for me then. 
 
 A night-ride through the Catskills, thinking 
 of Rip Van Winkle, regretting it was night; then
 
 LONDON AND NEW YORK 83 
 
 in the morning snow. Snow everywhere! More 
 snow than I had ever seen before. We arrived 
 at Rochester about ten. I found I should have 
 to go by a different line to Warsaw, and it being 
 Sunday there was no train. So an "express" 
 man who was at the dep6t took me to a hotel called 
 York House. Here I wondered at the meals 
 such a variety of dishes for each one. The 
 waiters and waitresses laughed at me for spread- 
 ing my butter on my toast. The company in the 
 sitting-room interested me greatly. \ They told 
 tall stories mostly about women. ' I had a 
 game of draughts ("checkers" in American) with 
 a judge. In the afternoon I took a stroll round 
 the city. The buildings I thought very fine, 
 the cold intense. I noticed that where a house 
 or shop was vacant, it was not "to let," it was 
 "to rent." Muldoon's Picnic was billed for a 
 theatre. (The Two Orphans was staged at the 
 Brooklyn Theatre the night my father was 
 killed.) 
 
 The next morning I was awakened at six to 
 catch the Warsaw train. The glass was fourteen 
 degrees below zero. My hotel bill, as I had little 
 money, was forwarded to my uncle, who settled 
 it. I think I left my trunk as security. 
 
 I must speak with unstinted praise of the 
 American railway car. One has room to move. 
 Each contains stove, water- tank and lavatory; 
 the windows are large and wide, so that one gets
 
 84 GEORGE MEEK 
 
 a decent view of the country; I have turned up 
 my nose at the English railway-carriage ever 
 since my return to this country. The car from 
 New York to Rochester * was fitted with wire- 
 woven reversible seats, the one to Warsaw with 
 arm-chairs fixed to the floor on twists, so that 
 one could turn any way. More snow and miles 
 of curious zig-zag fences. Then Warsaw. 
 
 I had always directed my uncle's letters to 
 "Box 375, Warsaw P. O." It seems there were 
 no postal deliveries there. If one had corre- 
 spondence it had to be poste restante, each resi- 
 dent having a separate numbered box. There 
 was no one to meet me at the dep6t, as a letter 
 I sent saying I was coming did not arrive till a 
 day after I did, so I went to the post office and 
 asked them to direct me to my uncle's house, 
 which they did. He lived about half-a-mile out 
 of the town on a small holding of his own. On 
 the way there the high wooden sidewalks and 
 the children with their sleds interested me. My 
 reading of American stories in Young Folks had 
 prepared me for a good many things I saw. 
 
 When I reached my uncle's house my aunt 
 opened the door to me. She gave an exclamation 
 of surprise and disappointment when she saw me. 
 "You will never do," she said. "You are not 
 strong enough and your eyes!" However, she 
 gave me an excellent breakfast. 
 
 She had only one son, and he had not done
 
 her the credit she felt she deserved. He had been 
 a failure in England, and they had gone to America 
 in consequence. He was, as I found, a failure 
 there. She had hoped by getting me there to 
 achieve some kind of social success. What it was 
 I do not know, but she told me afterwards that 
 she had hoped to take me out into local society, 
 and had been looking forward to it. She never 
 did take me, so that I saw but few of the people of 
 the town. My uncle took me to the Methodist 
 Episcopal Church, of which he was an officer of 
 some kind, one Sunday night. I thought the 
 service dreary and uninteresting. 
 
 When my uncle came home he was disap- 
 pointed too. They concluded at once that I 
 should never do out there. They "guessed" I 
 should never stand the climate, and the sun 
 would be too much for my eyes. My uncle was 
 a Puritan of the Puritans. My only vice at that 
 time was my beloved pipe. Smoking was a 
 deadly sin in his opinion. 
 
 Their family lived originally at Ludgershall 
 in Buckinghamshire. There were several sons. 
 My grandmother told me that in their young 
 days they were very wild. They were all big, 
 raw-boned men, and used to play football. Every 
 football match, she told me, used to mean a free 
 fight afterwards. This was in the early nineteenth 
 century. There were nine children, and their 
 father's wages were ten shillings per week, out of
 
 86 GEORGE MEEK 
 
 which they paid two shillings rent. The sons, to 
 add to the family's food, used to take sacks and go 
 out at night turnip-stealing. Talking of turnips 
 and this period, it is on record that a farmer near 
 Eastbourne caught a poor labourer eating a raw 
 turnip he had pulled up from a field on his way 
 home. The farmer made the man hold the turnip 
 above his head for an hour while he stood over him 
 with a horsewhip, lashing him every time he 
 lowered it. That farmer was a pillar of the 
 Calvinist chapel. If he and such as he are in 
 heaven, I would rather go to the other place. 
 England under Protection under the rule of the 
 landlords! 
 
 To return to America. I remained at my 
 uncle's three days. I had to dodge round behind 
 the "horse barn" when I wanted a smoke. They 
 fed me well. I lived well all the time I was in 
 America. I never sat down to tables so well 
 spread before or since. They were loaded with 
 so many and such good things, they recalled 
 the Homeric feasts. Breakfast, dinner (mid- 
 day), supper were all alike. Not in "courses"; 
 everything, I believe, was put on the table at once 
 and you ate whatever you chose. My aunt 
 had two boarders who worked in the salt wells, 
 a local industry. They amused one with their 
 queer yarns, intoned in their quaint voices. They 
 had been out West, and knew things. At night 
 I lay awake under four or five eider-downs, in
 
 LONDON AND NEW YORK 87 
 
 addition to fleecy blankets, listening to the pass- 
 ing sleigh-bells. The house was on the main 
 road between Warsaw and Wyoming, the county 
 town.
 
 CHAPTER VIII 
 
 AN AMERICAN FARM 
 
 MY cousin hired a farm on the hills about five 
 miles from his father's house. He worked it on 
 "shares," finding the stock and machinery, and 
 giving the owner a quarter of the annual pro- 
 duce. I walked to it through the snow the third 
 day after my arrival. I had no money and no 
 tobacco, so that the long walk was not cheerful. 
 When I arrived, however, I met with a hearty 
 welcome. The first thing I asked for was tobacco. 
 
 The menage consisted of my cousin and his 
 wife, their two children, both girls, respectively 
 nine and eleven years of age, and the "hired 
 man." My cousin was fond of excitement and 
 pleasure, given to dealing rather than work. 
 His wife was a big, buxom, jolly, good-natured, 
 simple woman, a native of Hull. Surely no one 
 ever made such delicious bread and pastry! 
 Her great sorrow was that she had only girls. 
 They were, however, bright, companionable little 
 things. The "hired man" was named Hohen- 
 stein, an American born of Saxon parents. He 
 
 88
 
 AN AMERICAN FARM 89 
 
 was a fine, well set-up blond man the ideal 
 Saxon. He had worked in the car-building 
 shops at Buffalo, and had left owing to labour 
 troubles. He was a member of the "Knights of 
 Labour." We soon became great friends. The 
 "hired man" on an American farm occupies a 
 very different position to that of an English 
 farm hand. He was paid eighteen shillings per 
 week, with board and lodging during seven 
 months of the year. During the other five he 
 could cut wood at eight shillings a cord. He 
 could earn a great deal over his keep at that, 
 allowing for impossible weather. One day Hohen- 
 stein took me down into Warsaw. He took 
 me to a billiard saloon. There were no drinking 
 saloons, as for the time being it was a prohibition- 
 ist county the teetotalers having got their nominee 
 elected as excise officer. In this saloon twopence- 
 halfpenny was charged for fifty up or for a game 
 of pool. There were several well-dressed men 
 playing men with good clothes, white starched 
 shirts, and heavy gold watch-chains. I said to 
 Hohenstein, "You seem to have a good many 
 well-to-do people here?" He answered: "These? 
 They are only farm hands or workers in the salt 
 wells." 
 
 The farm-house was a big, roomy, well-lighted 
 building. Two things impressed me about it. 
 One was that whereas when I first arrived, and 
 for some time after, we walked straight into the
 
 90 GEORGE MEEK 
 
 doors back and front off the snow, when the 
 spring came the back and front doors, with the 
 "stoop," were four or five feet above the ground. 
 The second was that I could never see out of my 
 bedroom window for the first few months owing 
 to the frosted glass. 
 
 Besides the humans, the life of the farm con- 
 sisted of many individuals with whom I soon 
 became intimate. There was "Grover," the 
 collie dog, named after Cleveland. (My cousin 
 was a Democrat in politics.) I loved Grover. 
 He was a most delightful dog. He would join 
 in our games, take the cattle or sheep out to 
 the meadows or fetch them home entirely "on 
 his own," and now and then he would take a 
 day off woodchuck hunting. He would get his 
 tail full of burrs and perform evolutions similar 
 to those of a boy's top in trying to get them out. 
 He was a lemon-and-white, about two years 
 old. 
 
 Then there were the horses, about ten of them. 
 One was a chestnut filly named Jenny, with a 
 tail about two yards long, whom I broke to the 
 saddle. Her favourite amusement was to chase 
 the cows round the yard, gambolling like a kitten, 
 and trying to see if she could stand on her head. 
 Another was a mare in foal, whom I had to 
 gently exercise with nothing but a horse-rug on 
 her. She had a backbone I shall never forget. 
 I rode her the five miles down to my uncle's
 
 91 
 
 through the mud when the frost broke, in that 
 same old blanket. 
 
 There were cows and heifers whom I had to 
 currycomb every morning; fifty merino sheep 
 looking like tabby cats or tigers in their creased 
 wool ; a curly-horned ram who was difficult to get 
 on speaking terms with. Chickens galore, all 
 sorts, but mostly Wyandottes and Houdans; 
 small breeds, which eat little but lay large eggs. 
 Red pigs, no cat. Cats and rabbits in America 
 run very small and skinny. The woodchuck, 
 Grover's favourite quarry, was a pretty animal 
 with fine grey fur, a body like a rabbit, a head 
 like a rat. Its fur is, unfortunately, useless, as 
 all the hair falls out before it can be cured. 
 
 Laughing hyena birds and hen-hawks were the 
 only two wild birds I noticed. There were 
 plenty of snakes. Hohenstein ploughed up a 
 nest of thirty-two in one furrow in the spring, 
 and Grover killed the lot by breaking their necks 
 with his teeth. 
 
 One thing I noticed about the people, they 
 were exceedingly prudish. They did not call a 
 ram by that name. I think they called it a 
 buck. The wife of a neighbouring farmer whom 
 I asked whether a new-born calf was a lady or 
 gentleman calf was quite offended. They had the 
 biggest black-and-white pig in the county. The 
 wife was boiling down maple syrup into sugar, 
 and her husband had just shot a skunk, yet she
 
 92 GEORGE MEEK 
 
 was angry with a poor benighted Englishman 
 for asking an innocent question ! 
 
 My reception, as I said, was cordial. They 
 gave me tobacco and promised to get me more. 
 Hohenstein used to chew, and bought his in 
 wooden buckets a dollar a bucket, I think. 
 Smoking tobacco was sold in half-pound packets 
 at tenpence a pound, good cool-smoking tobacco 
 such as one cannot buy in this God-forsaken 
 country at any price. They also gave me a 
 ripping supper. 
 
 The next day I was set to do the "chores." 
 I got up about eight (it was in January), then I 
 went out, watered and fed the horses, cattle, and 
 sheep, helped to groom the former, chopped 
 wood for the stoves (only wood was burned). 
 The wood is cut from the tree trunks in about 
 eighteen-inch lengths and then split with an 
 axe. After breakfast, which was always a very 
 substantial meal, with about a dozen different 
 dishes to choose from, we harnessed up the 
 horses to the heavy hauling sledge and went to 
 the woods felling trees. The ground was uneven. 
 We went over hedges, ditches, anything, over 
 the deep snow, going, as Hohenstein used to say 
 "to hell across lots." Sometimes the sledge 
 (sleigh, they called it), a wagon body taken 
 from its axles and fixed on runners, would tilt 
 over and deposit us in the snow, amidst much 
 laughter, the horses looking round and grinning
 
 AN AMERICAN FARM 93 
 
 at us. Then there would be hewing, I thinking 
 of Hawarden. We wore gloves like those made 
 for babies in England, in which only the thumb 
 is separate. Ordinary gloves would be useless 
 against the intense cold. They provided me 
 with a long pair of rubber boots, the most com- 
 fortable footwear I have ever known, and a big 
 fur cap which came right away down over my 
 ears. Hein! it was cold, but it was good to be 
 alive. 
 
 Then back to dinner and the "chores" again. 
 The watering of the cattle was an experience. 
 There was an unfreezable artesian well for the 
 horses and the house; the cattle watered at a 
 dugout trough, the ice in which had to be chopped 
 out with an old axe every time to make room 
 for the water. Before the next watering came 
 it froze solid again. The same thing happened 
 with the long sheep-troughs. 
 
 Then a stroll to some neighbouring farm, per- 
 haps, and supper. After supper an adjournment 
 to the "parlour." Here was a huge blazing 
 stove as big as, and not unlike, a large christening 
 font in a church. Rocking-chairs; I wonder 
 when our dull-brained countrymen will learn to 
 appreciate rocking-chairs? On the table great 
 pans of rosy apples and dun russets, foaming 
 jugs of home-made dry cider a curious drink 
 for the winter, but sufficient in that hot room. 
 Cards, euchre and vingt-et-un ad lib., the stakes
 
 94 
 
 being apples. Tiens! If I had been strong and 
 had had my eyes I could have lived so all my 
 days. Of course, being a boy in America, and 
 having read so many American stories, I had to 
 have a revolver. This I bought second-hand of 
 Hohenstein. It was called a "Pepper-box" it 
 had, not separate chambers, but four barrels, the 
 "needle" revolving instead of the chambers, as 
 in a modern one. I never had occasion to use it 
 and when I left America Hohenstein gave me a 
 dollar for it back again.
 
 CHAPTER IX 
 
 SPRING ON THE FARM 
 
 WHEN you see any particular heading to any 
 of my chapters, you must not expect to get what 
 it promises all at once. You will not always 
 get it. You are not going to get the spring yet 
 awhile. There are other things to be recorded. 
 First there was a fearful storm which swept away 
 a long row of rock-elms, leaving them lying prone 
 in the snow like a row of dead men. Then there 
 is the winter scenery which I forgot amidst the 
 crowding memories evoked by the last chapter. 
 
 The country was hilly, not unlike my own 
 Sussex downlands, only instead of smooth green 
 surfaces, the summits crowned with occasional 
 cairns, these hills were snow-covered and cut in 
 all directions by deep gullies called "gulfs." 
 These again were lined with evergreen hemlocks 
 from whose fronds the snow and, later in the 
 thaw, the icicles glittered. Those icicles, when 
 the thaw set in, hung from all tree branches and 
 from the leaves sometimes, as much as a yard 
 long. 
 
 95
 
 96 GEORGE MEEK 
 
 I was disappointed to find there was no skating 
 or sliding, but all waters were buried deep beneath 
 the snow. Instead, we took the sleds and tobog- 
 ganed down the slopes, Grover chasing us and 
 barking with envy at our fun. Then there was 
 the maple tapping. Huge pans were placed 
 under the trees and incisions made in their bark. 
 The sap so collected was boiled till it became 
 syrup. If you wanted sugar you boiled it still 
 more. You have never tasted maple syrup or 
 sugar, have you? They have the flavour of honey 
 and something else indescribably sweet mixed 
 together. My cousin Mary used to prepare 
 a dish for us fit for any gods living or dead. She 
 took fine corn-meal and boiled it as you would 
 boil rice. Then we ate it with maple syrup and 
 milk fresh from the cow. Does your mouth 
 water, you grimy Londoner? Go into the Gaiety 
 or Romano's, or the Troc or the Savoy, or any 
 such place, and see if with any money you can pay 
 you can get anything half so good. 
 
 The trees I remember were maple, iron-wood, 
 rock-elm, slippery-elm and hemlock. I remember 
 no more. The slippery-elm has a yellow viscous 
 outer section covering a very hard red pith, the 
 colour of raw mahogany, taking up about a third 
 of its diameter. This red core of the tree, Hohen- 
 stein told me, was sometimes used by cabinet- 
 makers, but it was difficult to work, as, besides 
 being very hard, unless when fresh sawn into
 
 SPRING ON THE FARM 97 
 
 planks it was fastened out flat securely, it would 
 coil up like a spring. The yellow outer section 
 was damp and cool. It could, if one was very 
 thirsty, be chewed, and in that way would relieve 
 thirst. 
 
 At last spring came and laborious days. We 
 cleared the barn-yards of their manure and spread 
 it over the land. Ploughs were got out and got 
 ready for use; the wooden roller, a solid tree- 
 trunk chipped into form, was put in order; the 
 wagon body was taken from the runners and 
 replaced on its axles and wheels. The best 
 buggy, caked with mud, was brought out and 
 washed. 
 
 Before I quite leave the winter I must recall 
 one day, a Sunday, I and my cousin drove to 
 his wife's relations' farm in a sleigh. This was 
 fourteen miles away. We hitched up his crack 
 pair of bays. The sleigh itself was as light as 
 a feather, as one would say, the body was of 
 papier-mache, rounded like a bathchair, not 
 unlike that of a bathchair in appearance, only it 
 held two. It had a leather dash-board in front, 
 with an iron rail for the reins to run over. The 
 runners were made of steel tubing. We were 
 wrapped up to our eyes. The cold was awful. 
 We were covered in with a buffalo-skin, our fur 
 caps came down to our eyebrows, great woollen 
 wraps smothered over our noses leaving us hardly 
 room to breathe. The bells on leather belts
 
 98 GEORGE MEEK 
 
 jingled on the bays. Tree, fence and home- 
 stead flew by us like lightning. There was no 
 sound except the bells and the faint pad of our 
 horses' shoeless hoofs on the snow. Up and 
 down, gliding silently, smoothly, a glide so swift 
 that one lost one's breath. 
 
 At the farm they had to pull my boots off and 
 put me in front of the stove; I was half frozen. 
 My cousin's wife's mother had married a second 
 husband, a bit of a wild man; I heard after I 
 returned to England that he had been frozen to 
 death. He had gone down into the town, got 
 the worse for drink, he and his horse had fallen 
 asleep on the homeward journey and been found 
 frozen stiff the next morning. 
 
 I am a long while getting to that spring, I 
 know, but I linger lovingly over some of these 
 memories. They did not partake of the sordid 
 everyday life in England. 
 
 When the spring did come, the sun came out 
 hot and hot. No August we know could com- 
 pare with that April. The roads were a sea of 
 mud, the fields a quagmire, but seed had to be 
 sown and lambs and calves cared for on their 
 entrance to this world of sorrow. My cousin 
 and his wife watched all night for the coming of 
 colts and calves. One Sunday morning I had 
 the unspeakable horror of having to hold lambs 
 while they were being mutilated. They say it is 
 necessary. I suppose under present conditions it
 
 SPRING ON THE FARM 99 
 
 is, but it is horrible. It is horrible. Better far 
 that the whole race of sheep should die and man- 
 kind exist without mutton or woollen garments 
 than that such things should be. 
 
 The cows began to give milk and the hens to 
 lay. I was sent out into the fields with Hohen- 
 stein to plough. I ploughed one lonely furrow, 
 a crooked one, then I was relieved of that most 
 useful employment. They do not plough like 
 the English. They use a light iron instrument 
 with nothing to change (is it coulter? I fear 
 I have forgotten the name of the part changed 
 in the English plough). They plough a straight 
 furrow, and then go round and round it till the 
 field is ready for the seed. The horses, too, do 
 not follow each other. They walk abreast, two 
 or three of them, according to the weight of the 
 soil. The ploughman has the reins fastened 
 behind him so that he can move either of his 
 hands from the plough handles to turn the horses. 
 No ploughboy is employed. 
 
 Of the neighbouring Irish farmers who used 
 to come and steal our corn in the night, of the 
 two old American ladies who owned the farm on 
 the other side of us, of many other things I must 
 write some other day. 
 
 "The bird of time hath but a little while 
 To flutter; and the bird is on the wing." 
 
 But one thing I had to do there which I hated
 
 100 GEORGE MEEK 
 
 doing. I had to kill a kitten, a mangy, diseased, 
 stray little tortoiseshell about twelve months old. 
 It was, I take it, a merciful thing to put an end 
 to its misery; but I shall never forget the appeal- 
 ing look in its eyes, or its misplaced confidence in 
 creeping up to me (I had been kind to it, as I am 
 invariably to all dumb friendly things), while I 
 held a tough bough of iron-wood behind me pre- 
 meditating its death. And I shall never forget it 
 as it lay bleeding in the snow after I had struck 
 it one terrible fortunately accurately aimed 
 blow. I have been compelled, with the utmost 
 reluctance, to perform the same office since to 
 stray and hopelessly useless cats, and I consider 
 that all those who keep female cats should be 
 compelled either to provide for their offspring or 
 see that they are destroyed. Only recently I 
 have had to destroy a hopelessly unclean kitten 
 which strayed to our present home. Apart from 
 all questions of "tariff reform" or current politics, 
 it seems to me that a heavy, a very heavy, tax on 
 all female cats has become an urgent public need.
 
 CHAPTER X 
 
 LEAVING AMERICA 
 
 ONE day my cousin had tapped a fresh barrel 
 of cider. I was at work planting potatoes in 
 the kitchen garden. You don't "dib" potatoes 
 in America as you would in England. The 
 season is too short. You take a broad-bladed 
 hoe and, having well dug your plot, you draw 
 furrows across it with one side of the hoe-blade. 
 Then you put your potatoes in so far apart, and 
 hoe the earth over them. Well, this potato- 
 patch was close to the cellar door. I pride myself, 
 having some meagre knowledge of Euclid's Ele- 
 ments, on being able to draw a straight line. 
 I was drawing reasonably straight furrows, but 
 my cousin did not think so. So he took the hoe 
 to show me how to go on. All his furrows began 
 at their right point, and kept fairly parallel with 
 their fellows for a time. But as he neared the 
 cellar door they deviated considerably in that 
 direction. After each attempt he paid a visit 
 to the newly-tapped barrel, and returned to 
 demonstrate again. Each attempt to instruct 
 
 101
 
 102 GEORGE MEEK 
 
 me proved more and more a failure, till finally 
 he went into the "parlour" and lay on the sofa, 
 where he peacefully slept for a time, and I ad- 
 journed to lunch with his wife, my bonny, buxom 
 cousin Mary. Poor dear old Mary! So patient, 
 so kind, so good-natured! Is it not always so, 
 that the good women marry the bad men, and 
 vice versa ? She was good, every inch of her five 
 feet eight. Clean, active, as strong as a young 
 mule, more tender-hearted than a boarding-school 
 miss, clever, capable, a good cook, a good house- 
 wife, economical, a good, affectionate mother, a 
 kind, considerate hostess. Dear old Mary! I 
 have n't heard from her for years. I hope her 
 after life was happy. She deserved that it should 
 be, but one does n't always get one's deserts in 
 this world, if ever. 
 
 I did a considerable amount of work on the 
 farm, so that as I received only my board and 
 lodgings I partly, if not wholly, outset my pas- 
 sage money. My cousin afterwards gave up the 
 farm and took a hotel when the county had 
 voted in favour of licences. 
 
 I left New York on a misty day the day the 
 Bartholdi statue was unveiled in June, and 
 had a pleasant voyage to Glasgow on the Anchor 
 Line boat Ethiopia, being eleven days on the 
 way. There were not many passengers on board. 
 I helped the steward, and fared more or less 
 sumptuously every day. I left my trunk behind
 
 LEAVING AMERICA 103 
 
 on the quay at New York. It was forwarded by 
 the next boat and sent on to Eastbourne, un- 
 opened even by the Customs officials. It con- 
 tained one pound of tobacco, two pounds of tea, 
 a ham, and many other good things. I went 
 direct to Eastbourne. The railway journey was 
 fearfully long. I left St. Enoch's, Glasgow, at 
 two P.M., and did not reach King's Cross till 
 four the next morning. I had to wait some time 
 at Leeds, and should have had a look round but 
 it poured in torrents. I have always wanted to 
 see the north and north country towns; but 
 that stay at Leeds, with Jupiter Pluvius very 
 much in evidence, has been my only chance. 
 On the way to America, during the few hours I 
 was in Liverpool, I was too intent upon getting 
 aboard my steamer to take much interest in 
 the city. On my return I saw a little of the 
 Clyde by moonlight and day. We landed at 
 Greenock, going on to Glasgow by rail. In the 
 compartment I travelled in were several of our 
 passengers and some of the crew of the Ethiopia, 
 and a discussion arose on the subject of smug- 
 gling. One of the sailors laughed at the idea of 
 getting mere tobacco through. He had either 
 some sheet music or lace I forget which con- 
 cealed beneath his shirt. One of the passengers 
 had some large cases of books with him. He 
 was an author, and they were his own work. 
 I went back to my old lodgings, and was out
 
 104 GEORGE MEEK 
 
 of employment for some weeks. Then I got a 
 situation as groom with an eccentric Irish doctor, 
 I found his horses less amenable to reason than 
 my old American friends; one bolted with me 
 and another tried to, a third was so nervous that 
 she would shy if anyone only looked at her. 
 My sight got me discharged, as I did not allow 
 enough for a gatepost when I was driving a 
 victoria. Then I found occasional jobs. One 
 was with a second-hand book dealer. This 
 suited me extremely well. I had always been 
 an omnivorous reader, and minding the shop 
 for him I had plenty of opportunities for study. 
 In America we had The New York World and 
 The Inter-Ocean; the only book I distinctly 
 remember reading there was Peck's Bad Boy. 
 Good old Peck! I read his Uncle Ike only last 
 week and enjoyed it. 
 
 A Liberal Club had been opened in Eastbourne 
 during my absence, and I became a member. 
 Here I spent most of my spare time when out 
 of work. During 1887 I was out of work most 
 of the time. I was employed for a while as 
 sewing-machine agent, but could not succeed in 
 getting sufficient orders. It was at about this 
 time I became friendly with Ruth. 
 
 After I returned from America the first situa- 
 tion I had was with a furniture dealer, an ardent 
 Liberal who had even christened his son "Wil- 
 liam Ewart." He was the most ill-tempered man
 
 LEAVING AMERICA 105 
 
 I ever worked for. Do what one would one 
 could not satisfy him. I had heavy loads of 
 furniture to wheel to different houses on a truck, 
 carpets and linos, to lay, bedsteads to put up, 
 and so on, most of which, though it taught me 
 a few things which have been useful since, was 
 not easy work. My wages were ten shillings per 
 week, not a very "liberal" remuneration for a 
 lad of eighteen as I then was. This happened 
 in 1886, the "Home Rule" year, when Glad- 
 stone's enormous red herring succeeded so well 
 in diverting the public attention from essential 
 social reforms, and incidentally put a Tory Gov- 
 ernment in power for a long spell. During that 
 winter I was part of the time with the doctor. 
 Afterwards I earned an occasional shilling dis- 
 tributing circulars and so on. In July I was 
 engaged for the first time in registration work 
 by the Liberals and late in the autumn I became 
 assistant steward at the Liberal Club for the first 
 time.
 
 CHAPTER XI 
 
 RUTH 
 
 WE had a sort of distant connection whom my 
 grandmother visited occasionally. She was, in 
 fact, a sister of the woman who married my 
 grandmother's son, of whom I have written in 
 my first chapter. Her name was Moran. She 
 had two sons and several daughters. It was 
 her ambition to give all her children some "gen- 
 teel" occupation or profession. Thus she got 
 one son into a lawyer's office; the younger 
 son and her eldest daughter became elementary 
 school-teachers; other daughters were appren- 
 ticed to the dressmaking. At this time four of 
 the daughters had married fairly well. Three 
 had married shopkeepers, the fourth a kind of 
 half manager, half cashier, at a large drapery 
 establishment. As the father, who had left their 
 mother some years before I got to know 'them, 
 had been only a working sawyer, when much of 
 the timber used in building was sawn by hand, 
 this was a typical case of a family striving more 
 or less successfully to force its way out of the 
 mere proletariat into the bourgeois class. 
 
 1 06
 
 RUTH 107 
 
 The rapid development of towns like East- 
 bourne enabled a great many such families to 
 emerge from the status of wage slaves. In East- 
 bourne more than one man who began life at 
 the plough-tail or with, at most, some small 
 peddling business, had died worth a considerable 
 fortune, so that the Lancashire saying about the 
 grandfather's clogs might have a local variation. 
 
 Ruth was the only unmarried daughter in this 
 particular family. She was about six months 
 older than I was, a plump, pleasing girl with 
 great masses of rich brown hair, rather refined in 
 her tastes and dress, very religious, as most of 
 her family were. 
 
 I first saw her on a visit I paid to them with 
 my grandmother when I was a small boy living 
 at Jevington. The younger son, Arthur, was 
 making fireworks for the ensuing fifth of Novem- 
 ber. Ruth was sitting with her mother, who 
 gave me, I remember, a large slice of bread, which 
 made me remember it. 
 
 When I returned from America my grand- 
 mother was still able to do an occasional day's 
 work. She received two shillings and sixpence 
 per week from the parish, with bread and flour, 
 but as she paid two shillings per week rent for a 
 small unfurnished room she occupied in a cot- 
 tage at Willingdon, she was obliged to work 
 when she could get any, though she was over 
 seventy years old. From time to time she did a
 
 108 GEORGE MEEK 
 
 day's washing or charing for Ruth's mother, 
 who at that time lived in a small cottage on the 
 roadside between Polegate and Hailsham. She 
 frequently spoke to me of them, but I did not 
 see them again until they had taken a house in 
 Eastbourne, where she took me one evening 
 while I was working for the Irish doctor. I think 
 they were in low water financially, at any rate 
 they were anxious to give up the house they had 
 taken for something cheaper. The doctor was 
 in need of a caretaker for a branch surgery he 
 had, and Ruth's mother applied for and obtained 
 the place. 
 
 From the time of this visit Ruth exercised a 
 great influence upon me. I had met no one who 
 had attracted me so much. As a child she had 
 been very delicate, and had been brought up in 
 great seclusion. She had been kept and educated 
 at home, had made no friends outside her own 
 family, and done nothing except the very lightest 
 of house-work, and she fascinated me with her 
 gentle, cultured ways. 
 
 It was proposed that she should learn the art 
 of dressmaking at home, so as to earn something 
 towards the family's expenses. She, her mother, 
 and the school-teacher son Arthur had lived 
 together up to this upon his salary, some of 
 the married daughters contributing assistance in 
 the way of clothing for the mother and daughter. 
 
 I left the doctor's service shortly after my firs*
 
 RUTH 109 
 
 visit to them, and before they took charge of the 
 surgery, and had entered the service of the Singer 
 Mfg. Co. as canvasser. I was supposed to sell 
 so many sewing-machines per week on the hire- 
 purchase system. Ruth was one of my earliest 
 customers, and as it was part of my duty to 
 show her how to operate the machine, I was 
 thrown a good deal into her society. Even after 
 she had mastered the machine I visited her from 
 time to time; once or twice a week, I believe, 
 except now and then when her mother quarrelled 
 with me and forbade me the house. 
 
 These visits were very pleasant to me. I can- 
 not for the life of me think what we used to talk 
 about. I was getting deeper and deeper in love 
 with her, but I did not dare to make love to her, 
 she seemed so inaccessible, and I was the greater 
 part of the time out of work. I was not at all 
 religious then. I was leading a silly, futile life, 
 half starved most of the time, yet singing at 
 smoking concerts and writing verses and para- 
 graphs for a local Radical paper. Ruth told me 
 afterwards that she had thought me shallow, and 
 I am not surprised at it. 
 
 Then I obtained a situation at the Liberal 
 Club. The Morans had left the surgery and 
 moved two or three times to different houses, at 
 all of which I continued to visit them. I know 
 that Mrs. Moran strongly objected to my friend- 
 ship with her daughter, yet curiously enough she
 
 110 GEORGE MEEK 
 
 always left us alone together when I called, and 
 I often stayed an hour and a half or two hours. 
 I did occasionally make myself useful to them. 
 During the first summer I was at the Club, Mrs. 
 Moran had one of her prohibitory fits, and I did 
 not call for a week or two. I was, I know, very 
 miserable. They had taken a house near the 
 Club where I worked, and I had to pass it two 
 or three times a day, and once or twice I passed 
 Ruth in the street, I think, either without speak- 
 ing, or just "passing the time of day" at 
 most. 
 
 But one evening she stopped me and asked me 
 why I did not call. I told her that her mother 
 had forbidden me the house, and she answered 
 that I was to take no notice of her, that her brother 
 Arthur was seriously ill with gastric fever and 
 jaundice, and she would be glad to see me 
 sometimes. 
 
 "But," I said, "I would rather not call, Ruth." 
 We were walking side by side down Susan's 
 Road towards the house where they were then 
 living. It was a warm summer evening. Ruth 
 was wearing a grey "dust cloak," as it was called, 
 and a pretty white straw hat trimmed with 
 daisies. We walked slowly. Twenty-one years 
 ago this August, perhaps to-day. 
 
 "But why, George?" she asked. 
 
 "Well, Ruth," I said, "it 's like this. You 
 know what I am and what your people are, and
 
 RUTH 111 
 
 I am afraid that I am getting to care for you a 
 great deal too much." 
 
 "I am sorry for that," she replied. "I thought 
 so sometimes. Of course you must n't, it is quite 
 useless; still, you can call, and we can be friends 
 just the same, can't we?" 
 
 Of course I ought to have been sensible and 
 kept to the resolution I had made to try and 
 forget her. But what lad of twenty is wise or 
 strong when a pair of sad grey eyes he has learned 
 to love are turned upon him? And I had dreams 
 and ambitions even then. Who knows what 
 might not happen some day? My love for her 
 was very deep and very sincere; there was no 
 room for any other woman, and having at last 
 confessed to her, I went back to my work, like 
 the young fool I was, tremendously happy at the 
 slight consolation our conversation had given me. 
 
 So I resumed my visits and they became more 
 frequent. 
 
 There was a quarrel with one of the married 
 daughters who was about to leave England with 
 her husband and children for Melbourne. I 
 acted as a kind of go-between. Then when 
 Arthur became convalescent I sat and chatted 
 with him. He was an amateur painter, and I 
 prophesied that he would become President of 
 the Royal Academy and I Poet Laureate. Poor 
 Arthur has been dead some years, and I have 
 come to the conclusion that I have no vocation
 
 112 GEORGE MEEK 
 
 for versemaking, much less for poetry, though a 
 few odds and ends of mine have been printed 
 and one song published with music : I have never 
 heard of any one singing it however. 
 
 About this time, probably through Ruth's 
 influence, I began to attend a place of worship, 
 going at first to the Congregational Church in 
 Pevensey Road, and afterwards to the Calvinist 
 chapel. I became an ardent Calvinist, closing 
 my mind to all the doubts I had previously 
 entertained. Ultimately I became a member of 
 the "Strict Baptist" chapel. I read the Bible 
 and Puritan and Calvinistic literature assidu- 
 ously. Among the Puritans, Rutherford and 
 Quarle are exceptionally good, as is also a writer 
 whose name, I believe, is Dyer. In a book of 
 his I read far and away the most beautiful and 
 reasonable conception of Paradise I have ever 
 seen. I am sorry I am not quite certain of the 
 writer's name, and have quite forgotten that of 
 his book; it was so very good, and when I meet 
 with a good thing I always like to recommend 
 it to others. 
 
 Towards the end of 1888 my grandmother sug- 
 gested that it would be better for her to come 
 and live at Eastbourne, as she was getting quite 
 beyond even occasional work, and it would be 
 cheaper for us to live together. I slept at the 
 place where I was employed, so I took a small 
 unfurnished room for her in Susan's Road.
 
 RUTH 113 
 
 Here Ruth sometimes came to see us. She 
 came early on Christmas morning. Up to this 
 time I do not recollect having sent or received a 
 Christmas card; but I bought one for her and 
 she brought one to me. She seemed very happy 
 and jocose that morning. As we stood together 
 shaking hands she looked up in my face and 
 said, with one of those winning sunny smiles she 
 could give on occasion, "I always felt I should 
 like to marry a tall man." 
 
 Though I am not out of the way tall I am, 
 or used to be, about five feet six this remark of 
 hers pleased me very much. She made it in a 
 low, soft voice which made me long to take her 
 in my arms; but until some time after we had 
 not got beyond a hand-shake. Afterwards she 
 chaffed me about an India-ink drawing I was 
 trying to make. 
 
 This happened in my grandmother's room, 
 which was in a house a few doors away from the 
 one in which my mother died. This house, when 
 we lived in it, had a large cellar under it which 
 in the winter was frequently nearly full of water. 
 After my mother's death it was filled with chalk. 
 It was still occupied by our old lodgers, a bath- 
 chair-man named Cook and his wife. On this 
 Boxing Day, as I went to my grandmother's 
 to dinner, I saw this man cleaning the windows 
 of his front room, and stood chatting to him 
 some time. On my return to work I met two
 
 114 GEORGE MEEK 
 
 policemen carrying a dead body on a stretcher; 
 they were surrounded by a small crowd. I asked 
 who the dead person was, and was told it was 
 my friend the bathchair-man to whom I had 
 been speaking less than an hour before. 
 
 He had been engaged to take a lady to the 
 Devonshire Park Theatre to a matinee per- 
 formance of Booth's Baby. She had been late in 
 starting and hurried him. He was a short, 
 stout man with a thick neck. The approach to 
 the main entrance to the theatre is rather steep 
 I find it rather a pull myself and that, with the 
 hurry, was too much for the old man. He fell 
 dead from syncope at the doors. 
 
 About this time two or three Eastbourne bath- 
 chair-men died suddenly. One named Cum- 
 mings was found dead alongside his chair in the 
 coachhouse. 
 
 Shortly after Christmas the Morans made 
 another move, taking a house in which they had 
 a spare room to let unfurnished. Mrs. Moran sug- 
 gested that I should take it for my grandmother, 
 which I did very readily, as it would, I knew, 
 give me more opportunities of seeing Ruth. I 
 helped them to move some of their things, among 
 them a steel engraving of a woman in the nude, 
 which occasioned my first quarrel with Ruth. 
 She saw me looking at it and snatched it out 
 of my hands. I made a simple remark, and 
 she flew into a temper and would not be recon-
 
 RUTH 115 
 
 ciled for several days. I said, "Don't you like 
 me to look at it then?" She said: "I didn't 
 mind you looking at it. I think a graceful female 
 figure is a beautiful thing to look at; but you 
 should not have said anything about it to me." 
 
 However, her ill-temper wore off in time. We 
 saw each other every day, though I had to be 
 satisfied with just talking to her and occasionally 
 shaking hands with her. The old woman soon 
 quarrelled with me again; and although she 
 could hardly forbid me the house, she would not 
 allow me in the kitchen, so that I had to depend 
 upon chance meetings on the landing outside 
 my grandmother's room, or visits she paid to us, 
 or I to her, when her mother was out of the way, 
 for my intercourse with Ruth. How long this 
 state of things lasted I do not know, but some 
 time that spring, 1889, a slight incident made us 
 become lovers in everything but the fait accompli, 
 which, while it might have bound us together 
 indissolubly, would have robbed our love of its 
 purity and Ruth of the charming modesty and 
 dignity which were so characteristic of her.
 
 CHAPTER XII 
 
 LOVERS UNDER THE ROSE 
 
 "Ax least," said Ruth one day when we were 
 discussing the future, which meant the likeli- 
 hood or otherwise of our ever being married, "if 
 you never have me, you will always have the 
 memories of these days." 
 
 And they were very happy days. I was very 
 much in love, and though there was a good deal of 
 risk in our intercourse and, of course, occasional 
 quarrels and misunderstandings, that fact made 
 my life during the next fifteen months full of 
 those beautiful moments which sometimes make 
 life worth while. 
 
 Our closer intimacy came about in this way. 
 One afternoon I was in my grandmother's room 
 when I heard Mrs. Moran storming at her 
 daughter in one of her periodical outrageous fits 
 of rage. She had probably been drinking. She 
 was addicted to the use of Hollands gin, which 
 she took on account of her predisposition to rheu- 
 matic gout. She died some years afterwards 
 from dropsy and enlargement of the heart. 
 
 116
 
 LOVERS UNDER THE ROSE 117 
 
 Hearing Ruth coming up-stairs crying, I went 
 to the door to condole with her. She was very 
 unhappy, and somehow she leaned against me, 
 and, putting my arms round her, I tried to kiss 
 the tears away. It was the first time I had ever 
 kissed her. I had longed for and dreamed of 
 such a delight, but scarcely ever dared to hope 
 for it, and now, unexpectedly, I was not only 
 kissing her, but she was in my arms with her 
 head resting on my shoulder. She made no 
 resistance, but for several days afterward she 
 blushed every time we met and was very shy. 
 
 I had kissed a good many girls before. I 
 kissed Ruth a great many times afterwards, and, 
 of course, I have done the same to a good many 
 women since; but there has been nothing before 
 or since quite like that first kiss. 
 
 It was taken shyly, reverently, with a good 
 deal of trepidation. I suppose most men and 
 women who have lived and loved at all can 
 think of at least one such occasion, which is my 
 excuse for dwelling on it. I wonder how many 
 girls have been driven by the unkindness of 
 those to whom they have a right to look for kind- 
 ness to even greater falls! 
 
 After this we grew more and more intimate. I 
 was usually free from ten or eleven in the morning 
 until seven at night, so that, as Ruth was nearly 
 always at home, we had many opportunities. 
 When her mother was asleep gr out she would
 
 118 GEORGE MEEK 
 
 come into our room and sit with us, at other 
 times I waylaid her as she passed the door. 
 
 This went on for about nine months; then 
 Mrs. Moran, in one of her fits of temper, gave 
 us notice to quit, and we took another room in 
 the next street. Here Ruth used to come and 
 see us whenever she had the chance. Nearly 
 every Sunday afternoon we sat by the fire for 
 an hour or two locked in each other's arms; 
 grandmother sitting at the opposite side of the 
 fire jealous and angry. Last winter I saw a 
 couple "canoodling" very frequently; they were 
 so far gone that they could not restrain their 
 caresses even before strangers and I must admit 
 that that kind of thing does not appeal to a third 
 party. At any rate my grandmother used to get 
 very cross, and after Ruth had gone I came in 
 for a long scolding, which, I am afraid, did not 
 worry me very much. The old lady was getting 
 more feeble; she was close upon seventy-four, 
 and early in the following March 1890 she 
 contracted bronchitis, and died a few days after- 
 wards. She was buried at Langney on a very 
 windy day, I being the only mourner. She had 
 always been very fond of me; no mother could 
 have been more kind. 
 
 Previous to her death, Ruth's mother had 
 taken a situation as housekeeper to a gentleman 
 who lived apart from his wife at Willingdon. 
 Her son Arthur had one of his periodic break-
 
 LOVERS UNDER THE ROSE 119 
 
 downs at the time, and stayed with them. Ruth 
 was left in charge of the house at home. She 
 had worked up a private connection as a dress- 
 maker. Two rooms of the house were let un- 
 furnished, and she had to make up the balance 
 of the rent and keep herself out of her earnings, 
 which were not great. We met out of doors 
 after my grandmother's death she would not 
 visit me and had long walks and talks together, 
 usually getting to some secluded place. Some- 
 times she walked to Willingdon to see her brother 
 and mother. Then I walked the greater part 
 of the way with her, and met her again on her 
 homeward journey at night. Once, while waiting 
 for her, she came along with her brother. I had 
 to get behind a hedge, and then we had to go 
 home by the fields by Rodmell in the dark to 
 avoid being seen. She was upset and nervous. 
 While we were crossing a dark lonely field I was 
 terribly tempted but j.t ended at that. Then at 
 another time there was a moonlight walk out 
 towards Rodmell by the footpath where the 
 King's Drive has now been made. We got off 
 the path along under the trees by a fence. Trees 
 and fence are still there, about half-way to Hamp- 
 den Park. Ruth sat on the fence and I hugged 
 her, and we talked and talked oh! for two 
 hours it must have been ! I suppose it is a matter 
 of temperament, but that kind of love suited 
 me with Ruth. I wonder what I should have
 
 120 GEORGE MEEK 
 
 thought of her if anything had happened, whether 
 things would have been different, whether she 
 would have clung to me and made my life worth 
 while, instead of the wretched muddle it has 
 been? This thought has often troubled me, 
 though Ruth being what she was, I do not see 
 how anything could have happened. 
 
 Then her curious mother sent word that I was 
 to do some work at the Eastbourne house. I was 
 to spend three or four days digging and tidying 
 up the garden. This with Ruth alone in the 
 house, as the lodgers were always out. Three 
 or four glorious bohemian days ! I had no regular 
 work at the time, and we had our meals together 
 just for those few days. She did not pretend 
 to be a good cook. One day we bought the ma- 
 terials for a steak pudding, and she made it. I 
 don't know why I have never tasted a pudding 
 like it before or since. It was like lead. This 
 was the height of our intimacy. We did every- 
 thing but fall. From that we were saved as 
 by a miracle, for alone together with every oppor- 
 tunity, in the spring-time, our young blood 
 glowing I do not take any credit to myself. I 
 never wilfully tempted her, though we sat often 
 for hours locked in each other's arms. I rather 
 tried to avoid temptation and to put all evil 
 thoughts from me. I guarded her honour even 
 from myself as watchfully as if she had been my 
 sister. True, we were both deeply religious, we
 
 LOVERS UNDER THE ROSE 121 
 
 were both modest and clean-living, but we were 
 young and changeable. Our ideals were greater 
 than mere respectability. 
 But 
 
 "The earthly hope men set their hearts upon 
 Turns ashes 
 
 Even stolen pleasures come to an end. I had 
 given up smoking for a time to please Ruth, 
 but that was a vain sacrifice; the gods were 
 jealous of what happiness I had, and I had enough 
 trouble in one way and another. 
 
 One night I went to her house, but seeing 
 lights in more rooms than usual, suspected some- 
 thing was wrong and did not knock. Her friends 
 had returned suddenly from the country, and I 
 believe I had been forbidden the house again a 
 day or two previously. Anyway, Ruth let me 
 know the next day. For a little while a few 
 days or a few weeks, I cannot remember which 
 we met by appointment when we could. Then 
 getting careless by long immunity from detec- 
 tion, one night we were walking arm in arm 
 jauntily along one of the principal streets when we 
 ran full tilt into her brother. He said nothing, 
 but passed on, merely looking at us. Ruth gave 
 a gasp of pain and fear and dropped my arm, 
 hurrying on to the shop to which she had been 
 sent. 
 
 And that was the end. The next morning she
 
 122 GEORGE MEEK 
 
 met me as usual on her way to work. She had 
 given up her private work and was at a mantle- 
 maker's at this time. Poor Ruth! she had been 
 crying all night. She was crying then, a thick 
 veil hiding her tear-stained face. They had made 
 her promise never to see me or speak to me again. 
 
 Oh! the ifs in life. // I had had a good start 
 and only fairly decent prospects in some decent 
 trade I might have had her. Even as it was, if 
 she had had faith in me I might have done better. 
 I should not, at least, have lived on her as, they 
 say, her husband did when she did at last marry. 
 But as nothing I could say or do then could 
 keep her to me, nothing I can say or do now 
 can undo what has been done or recall her to me. 
 And how I long for her sometimes! Just to 
 talk with her, to have her confide whole-heart- 
 edly in me as she used to, to tell me all her troubles 
 and anxieties. 
 
 I had been attending the same chapel as Ruth 
 for some time, and had got to know the minister. 
 In this trouble I went to him for consolation and 
 advice. I felt I must open my heart to some one. 
 He made me angry, very angry indeed, by sug- 
 gesting that it was "just as well our intimacy had 
 been broken off, as religious courtships often led 
 to immorality." He was anxious to know if 
 there had been anything of the kind between us, 
 and I am afraid the way in which I replied made 
 us enemies ever afterwards.
 
 CHAPTER XIII 
 
 THE LIBERAL CLUB 
 
 IN the two foregoing chapters I have spoken 
 of the Liberal Club. After my first turn at 
 registration work in the summer of 1888 I was 
 out of work some time. I cannot think how I 
 managed to live. I suppose I must have had a 
 few odd jobs. I was turned out of my lodgings 
 in York Road because I could not pay my rent, 
 and took a small room in Bridge's Yard. Here 
 I was charged, I think, two shillings or half-a- 
 crown a week. The landlady, who used to go 
 out to work, was very good to me, always leaving 
 me a cup of tea and a slice or two of bread-and- 
 butter in the morning, and giving me something 
 to eat at night, and she allowed my rent to stand 
 over until I got work. My days I spent looking 
 for employment, in the Liberal Club, at my 
 friends the Strettons', or at Willingdon with my 
 grandmother. Sometimes I know I was very 
 hungry, and tobacco, which was almost as much 
 to me as food, was often hard to come by. A 
 second-hand bookseller, who has long since been 
 
 123
 
 124 GEORGE MEEK 
 
 dead, gave me occasional jobs. I had attracted 
 his attention by buying books of him when I was 
 in work, and selling others to him when I was 
 hard up. Among these were my grandfather's 
 Family Bible and Hume's History of England, 
 which I parted with most reluctantly. This man 
 was a rabid Tory, a betting man (most betting 
 men, I notice, are Tories), and we had frequent 
 differences of opinion on politics. 
 
 When I first became a member of the old 
 Liberal Club it was under the management of the 
 late Councillor Pearce one of the Radical group 
 on the Town Council. After a time a young 
 married member who was out of employment was 
 appointed steward, and he engaged me as billiard 
 marker. With him I had to do most of the 
 cleaning, attend to the bar during the day, and 
 the billiard-room at night. I had one afternoon 
 and Sundays off. The Club never opened on 
 Sundays, which I spent with my grandmother, 
 the afternoons with Ruth, at a place they then 
 had at Old Town; I had just resumed my visits 
 to her, which had been broken off for a time for 
 some reason or other. 
 
 I tried to do my work well, and made many 
 friends among the members. But after a time 
 something went wrong with the accounts: some- 
 thing was wrong with the bar takings, and the 
 steward tried to throw the blame upon me. He 
 gave me notice, but afterwards rescinded it,
 
 THE LIBERAL CLUB 125 
 
 I was quite innocent of the charge, and I wrote 
 a letter to Ruth telling her he had apologized 
 which he had and I had been reinstated. This 
 letter I left in my bedroom (I slept at the Club 
 at the time), and while I was out he had the impu- 
 dence to open and read it before I had posted it, 
 and then changed his mind again and told me 
 I was still to consider myself under notice. 
 
 Some of the members took my part, and some 
 his. Of course, I did not like losing my work; 
 but the accusation, while it caused me a good 
 deal of inconvenience, did not worry me much, 
 because I knew it was false, and I felt that some- 
 how I should be put right sooner or later. One 
 of the house committee took the steward's part 
 and tried to make things unpleasant for me; 
 but I remained a member of the Club, taking part 
 in the weekly concerts and some debates we held 
 during the winter, and, in spite of his opposition, 
 I was given a night to read a paper on "Unem- 
 ployment," a very appropriate subject, as I was 
 out of work myself. This man, a lithographer, 
 with a great deal of what we call in present-day 
 slang "swank," and the steward raised an outcry 
 at this, as they said I was under suspicion of 
 having robbed the Club; however, the other 
 members took no notice of them, and I read my 
 paper. I was not an informed Socialist then. 
 I remember, however, I advocated a remedy 
 which has formed the subject of an address by
 
 126 GEORGE MEEK 
 
 Sidney Webb only last week. I said that all 
 lads should be taught a trade. Of course, I 
 know now that, desirable as such a course would 
 be, it would fail to solve the unemployed problem 
 and really aggravate it in the skilled trades, but 
 the fact that I knew no trade thoroughly myself, 
 and was not strong enough for ordinary labour- 
 ing work, had been the cause of me being out of 
 work so much then, and has greatly hindered 
 me ever since. Every lad should be thoroughly 
 trained to some useful calling. The untrained 
 young man, especially if he is not particularly 
 strong, stands a very poor chance of maintaining 
 himself, and had better be dead out of the way. 
 
 My leaving did not seem to benefit the Club 
 exchequer. It was found that the spirits, which 
 should have been only fifteen under proof, had 
 been broken down to forty-five, and that account 
 of the wine stock had not been properly kept. 
 So the whole staff were discharged at a moment's 
 notice, and as I was on the premises at the time, 
 the new steward reinstated me in my place. 
 
 The old steward blamed his wife and emigrated 
 with his father and mother to the United States. 
 He was not a nice man. He had been an only 
 son, was brought up with ideas a great deal 
 above his means, and, as I remember him, while 
 wishing to pose and dress as a "gentleman," had 
 the soul of a cringing cur. They had one child, 
 which I think he took to America with him.
 
 THE LIBERAL CLUB 127 
 
 The Club was hardly paying its way, and Dick 
 Winder, the new steward, was not given so large 
 a salary as the old one. Consequently he could 
 not employ me the whole of the day, nor pay me 
 so much as the other had done. There was a 
 suite of rooms at the top of the house reserved 
 for the Club servants; this Dick did not want, 
 as he kept on his house in Susan's Road, a hundred 
 yards or so from the Club; but he furnished a 
 room for me to sleep in and paid me five shillings 
 a week, out of which I had to find my own food. 
 My hours of work were from 7 to 10 A.M., and 
 from 7 to 1 1 P.M. Not much of a job for a young 
 man of twenty, but better than being out of work, 
 and I had the rest of the day to earn odd shillings 
 in. Mr. Brown, the registration agent, who 
 had his office on the premises, put what work he 
 could in my way, and one way and another I 
 managed to live, though I sowed the seeds of 
 chronic dyspepsia during the first part of my 
 time there by subsisting mainly on cheap pies 
 which a baker used to supply to the Club. He 
 let me have them at the wholesale price two for 
 three halfpence and two of them (one meat and 
 one jam or fruit) formed my dinner every day. 
 Bread-and-butter and coffee for breakfast, bread- 
 and-butter and tea for tea. This continued until 
 my grandmother came from Willingdon towards 
 the end of '88. 
 
 I was appointed collector for the Working
 
 128 GEORGE MEEK 
 
 Men's Liberal Association, and so got to know 
 many prominent Liberals besides those who used 
 the Club. I observed that many of the loudest 
 talkers were the poorest subscribers. One "pro- 
 minent" Liberal of the rabid Nonconformist- 
 teetotal order refused to subscribe at all because 
 the association was guilty of the awful wicked- 
 ness of holding smoking concerts in public- 
 houses. These concerts had been a great source 
 of pleasure to me before I was employed at the 
 Club; afterwards, of course, I could not get out 
 at night to get to them. We had some really 
 good singers poor old George Holly and Jack 
 Slaughter, a very fine tenor and baritone, and 
 F. A. Bourne, a far better comedian than many 
 professionals. I sang a good deal myself. 
 
 I led a curious life at the Club. When not 
 engaged in odd jobs I spent much of my time in 
 reading. This the earlier part of the time, 
 before I "got religion" consisted of the Club 
 papers, and books I had from Pulsford's Library. 
 Of the former, I was most partial to the Daily 
 Chronicle, Punch, Truth, the Graphic, and the 
 Illustrated London News. In one of the latter I 
 read Rider Haggard's She. There was a small 
 library at the Club, containing some books by 
 Harriet Martineau, J. S. Mill on Liberty (which I 
 didn't read), some Cobden Club publications, 
 but, best of all, several of Dickens's novels in the 
 "Household" edition. This edition, with its
 
 THE LIBERAL CLUB 129 
 
 clear-cut illustrations depicting normal people 
 in normal clothes for their period has always 
 been my favourite, and when I get very rich I 
 intend to possess myself of a complete set of it. 
 I always considered that the illustrations in the 
 older and more expensive editions were absurd, 
 and spoilt one's pleasure in reading the books to 
 some extent, but it would have been considered 
 treason to have said so in those days, though 
 others are beginning to say so now. It is the 
 same with other literary fetishes. 
 
 I have been reading Shakespeare's Plays lately 
 for the third or fourth time, and I cannot for the 
 life of me see what there is so out of the way 
 wonderful about them. I prefer Homer. Then 
 Scott and Thackeray I can't stand anyhow. 
 From Pulsford's I got most of George Eliot's 
 novels, which, with Reade's, Hugo's, Lytton's 
 and a few of Ainsworth's, formed the bulk of my 
 reading. George Eliot, Mrs. Humphry Ward 
 and Olive Schreiner are the only three author- 
 esses I could ever read with much pleasure. 
 
 At night I had the choice of the three rooms 
 which formed the steward's apartments to sleep 
 in, and I tried them all in turn. It used to be 
 horribly cold sometimes in the winter, especially 
 in the back room, which faced north-west, but 
 which I fancied for a time because I could see 
 the Downs from the window. There were two 
 rooms in front one with two windows, one of 
 
 9
 
 130 GEORGE MEEK 
 
 which looked towards Terminus Road, the other 
 into Langney Road. This had a bright red- 
 and-gold paper, and had been intended as a 
 sitting-room. The other, the smallest room of the 
 three, faced south-east, and overlooked Langney 
 Road. I used this the second winter I was there, 
 when I had overcome my scruples far enough to 
 help myself to a fire at night from the Club coal- 
 cellar, because it got warm quickest. These three 
 rooms were shut off from the rest of the house 
 by a green baize door. Outside this door was the 
 top of the stairs, with a members' lavatory on the 
 right, and the large billiard-room facing it. This 
 room, with its two fires, two windows, large 
 Burroughes and Watts table and other fittings, 
 took up a good deal of my time. It had to be 
 swept and cleaned directly after breakfast, the 
 table well brushed, and, in the winter, ironed. 
 Then, too, we banked the two fires up and kept 
 them in all night to keep the cushions from getting 
 hard. 
 
 On the next floor below there were five rooms. 
 On descending the stairs which I swept every 
 morning and cleaned twice a week a passage led 
 on the right to a small lavatory. On one side of 
 this was * the directors' room, which was hardly 
 ever used except by the secretary. To the left was 
 the card-room. This consisted of two rooms 
 thrown into one. Scattered about it were a num- 
 ber of small baize-covered uables at which at
 
 THE LIBERAL CLUB 131 
 
 night the members played whist or nap. It was 
 said that a man had hanged himself in that room 
 years before, but that did not deter me from 
 sleeping sound enough in the rooms overhead. 
 Facing the foot of the stairs was the bar, a little 
 room, with small shuttered windows looking into 
 the smoking- and card-rooms, containing shelves 
 for spirits, tankards and glasses, and so on, and 
 barrels of ale and stout. Next was the smoking- 
 room. It had a large bay window looking into 
 Langney Road, and contained a large number 
 of wooden arm-chairs, with a big dining-table 
 in the centre. Behind this, and divided from it 
 by double doors which could be thrown back so 
 as to convert the two into one on the occasion 
 of a concert or lecture, was the bagatelle-room: 
 this was patronized by those members who 
 found billiards too expensive. On the ground- 
 floor was the reading-room, a soft-carpeted 
 quiet place, to the right of the entrance, and the 
 registration-office to the left, with a large kitchen, 
 a scullery and glass-pantry at the back. These 
 last I had to myself. 
 
 The place is still there, the end house in Lang- 
 ney Road, with its upper floors covering an arch- 
 way, making them so much larger than the 
 ground-floor, but the reading-room and the 
 registration-office have been converted into shops ; 
 and our old front gardens, with their shrubs, 
 surrounded every spring by numbers of wall-
 
 132 GEORGE MEEK 
 
 flowers, have made way for the widening of the 
 pavement. 
 
 In the morning all these rooms had to be swept, 
 and some one or other of them cleaned. Dick 
 took charge during the day we had few callers in 
 the daytime, as most of the members were at 
 work or at business. Amongst those who did 
 drop in were a few journalists, among them at one 
 time Richard Le Gallienne, who was then on the 
 staff of the Eastbourne Gazette. He was, I remem- 
 ber, a tall, slight, quiet man. I got into con- 
 versation one day with him about a story I was 
 trying to write. It was my first attempt at fiction, 
 and did not get beyond the first chapter. I found 
 some difficulty in producing dialogue a trouble 
 which he told me he was subject to himself. 
 
 Another member who dropped in occasionally 
 during the day was the late Sir John Bennet, 
 who used to tell me of good books to read. Among 
 them, I remember, he recommended the Vicar 
 of Wakefield, Tristram Shandy, Roderick Random 
 and several other English classics. 
 
 But it was in the evening that the place filled. 
 The members were mostly of the shop-keeping 
 class, or employed in shops, though there were 
 several working men. Two members, both old 
 men, stand out in my memory. One was old 
 John Vine, the father or grandfather of many 
 of the existing Vines, whose memory carried 
 back to the end of the eighteenth century. He
 
 THE LIBERAL CLUB 133 
 
 told of the "good old times," when, if poor people 
 were lucky enough to get the flour to make a 
 beef pudding, they had to go round Beachy 
 Head to get the "beef" in the shape of limpets 
 off the rocks. Most of the time they lived upon 
 "fromenty" and swedes. The other was the 
 late Mr. Charles Adams, who had years before 
 lost a good business by being boycotted for 
 leading the local agitation against Church rates. 
 He was noted for the grandiloquent language 
 of his speeches, and attributed his hale old age 
 to the fact that he invariably ate fruit the first 
 thing in the morning before having his breakfast. 
 
 We opened at nine A.M. I used to go about 
 my work, as a rule, singing songs, until I "got 
 religion," when I changed them to hymns of the 
 "Gadsby" variety, much to Dick Winder's 
 disgust. 
 
 One of our members was Dr. Pollock, who at 
 that time lived a few doors away. Later, when 
 the dyspepsia consequent upon my unchanging 
 diet of cheap pies had got so firm a hold upon 
 me that I could scarcely do my work or even 
 walk, I had become so weak, some medicine or 
 advice he gave me I can't tell which; perhaps 
 it was both cured me in the course of a few 
 days, though I had been going to another doctor 
 for months without getting any relief. This 
 medico was a strict teetotaler, and ordered me 
 whatever I did not to touch alcohol in any form.
 
 134 GEORGE MEEK 
 
 I hardly ever did at this time; though I was 
 allowed a pint or two of beer a day at the Club, 
 I seldom had it, as I did not like beer. Some- 
 times in very hot weather I would have a large 
 lemonade with a very small dash about a tea- 
 spoonful of whisky in it to take the rawness 
 off it, but that was the extent of my dissipation. 
 One Whit Monday, while I was at Stretton's, 
 Horace and some of the young men I lodged 
 with between them had made me horribly drunk, 
 worse than I ever was before or since, so that 
 I had to be "frog-marched" home, and that 
 cured me of drink for years afterwards. 
 
 Besides this injunction, there were so many 
 things prohibited cakes, puddings, pies, pickles, 
 jams, tea and coffee, and I know not what, that 
 I hardly knew what to eat or drink, and I was 
 then in a position to vary my diet, too. But 
 Dr. Pollock, after giving me my medicine, advised 
 me to drink two or three glasses of ale or stout 
 every day, and eat anything I fancied and could 
 get. This advice I followed. I was soon free 
 from dyspepsia, and now I can make a hearty 
 meal off almost anything eatable especially 
 my favourite dish, steak-pudding without any 
 trouble with my stomach. Doctors are a curious 
 lot: for one who understands and can and does 
 really help people, there seem to be a dozen who, 
 for what good they do, might just as well be 
 automatic fee-taking machines.
 
 CHAPTER XIV 
 
 ODDS AND ENDS 
 
 ONCE when I was in London I heard the revival- 
 ists Sankey and Moody in a large building in 
 Stepney Green. I "got religion" badly for 
 a week or two, but soon reverted to my early 
 agnosticism. I have never been troubled much 
 about my "soul": I have had too much bother 
 to live in this world to worry myself much about 
 the next. I have no doubt I took up religion the 
 last time to please Ruth. 
 
 Although I made myself believe in the Cal- 
 vinistic tenets, I was no Antinomian unless the 
 following makes me out to have been one. One 
 day I remember it most distinctly I was 
 standing on the staircase at the Liberal Club 
 looking out of the window, when a thought, a 
 kind of proposition, seemed to fix itself in my 
 mind. It was this: Should I, for the future, 
 follow the strict path of duty, or should I follow 
 my impulses? 
 
 Now, had I followed the path of duty, as I 
 saw it, I should have had to break with Ruth. 
 Evidently, in my position, I had no right to 
 
 135
 
 136 GEORGE MEEK 
 
 make love to her, and I should have had to give 
 up smoking, so that life would have been quite 
 a dreary blank. So I decided definitely to follow 
 impulse, at least in these two things. 
 
 In his Grace Abounding to the Chief of Sinners 
 my wife's great ancestor John Bunyan has set the 
 standard to which all Calvinists aspire. Unless 
 you have all kinds of visions and torments 
 "experiences" as they are called you have no 
 marks of grace. Only the few "elect" are to be 
 saved, all the rest of mankind are to be damned 
 for ever and ever. Some of them have gone so far 
 as to say that "there are babies on the floor of 
 Hell a span long." This horrible "faith" held 
 me for a few years, worrying myself a great part 
 of the time trying to evoke these "visions" and 
 "experiences" so as to know if I was one of the 
 "elect"; but in course of time more sensible 
 counsels prevailed, and I resumed my normal life. 
 I must confess that my experiences and observa- 
 tions have led me to endorse the common view 
 that sordid greed and nonconformity usually go 
 together. There are, of course, exceptions. The 
 minister of the chapel of which I was a member 
 was a thoroughly good man, as also is one of my 
 fellow bathchair-men, who, although he con- 
 demns my agnosticism and numerous follies, 
 has befriended me time after time, always ready 
 to forgive, if not to forget, and do me still another 
 good turn. But, then, those two men believe in
 
 ODDS AND ENDS 187 
 
 God, to them He is the real, actual Provider who 
 will do everything right. I have tried over and 
 over again to fight this question out in my own 
 mind. I have no desire to be either religious or 
 non-religious for its own sake; I have wanted 
 to get at the truth of it. But I suppose we never 
 shall, and, after all, does it matter so very much? 
 It seems to me so much better to try to make the 
 life of the living more sane and happy than to 
 worry about the dead. In our fields and gardens 
 we cherish the food-giving trees and plants and the 
 flowers, destroying the weeds; in our human 
 society the producers and sustainers of life are 
 despised, neglected, insufficiently nourished and 
 cared for, while the noxious weeds flourish and 
 fatten on them. 
 
 My Calvinism had one lasting effect: it left 
 me a fatalist, a position my scientific reading 
 and my own experiences have confirmed me in. 
 "Free will" would be a fine thing if we had 
 any. I should very much like to be able to change 
 my temperament, disposition and tastes for 
 something more profitable and less liable to get 
 me into trouble. If "conduct is three parts 
 of life," as Matthew Arnold says, conduct itself 
 is determined by temperament. 
 
 My grandmother's illness gave me my first 
 experience as a sick nurse. I sat up two or three 
 nights with her ; then she was taken to the infirmary, 
 where she died.
 
 138 GEORGE MEEK 
 
 Before proceeding to the time when, alas! there 
 was no Ruth for me, perhaps some of my lady 
 readers would like to know how she used to 
 dress. She usually dressed in quiet colours. 
 I do not remember many of her frocks; one I 
 know was a medium brown with a long wide strip 
 of gold braid running down the side of the skirt. 
 With this she wore a big hat with piles and piles 
 of brown ribbon on it. I think it must have been 
 about this time that blouses first became popular. 
 She is the first woman I ever remember to have 
 seen wearing one. It was a red one, and with a 
 plain dark-grey skirt she was wearing she looked 
 enchanting in it. They were called "Garibaldis" 
 in those days. Another hat she had, a pretty black 
 felt shape, was trimmed with shot green ribbons, 
 but it had, to my disgust, a little green stuffed 
 bird on the side of it. This was the era of "dress 
 improvers," not the big wire arrangements (they 
 had gone out a year or two before), but the little 
 pads worn under the skirt at the back. The fur 
 capes which came down to the elbow were much 
 worn then, too; Ruth had one on when her brother 
 brought her round to my lodgings on the night 
 of the momentous interview after we had been 
 discovered. 
 
 There is something more I may as well put 
 on record here before I turn to other subjects. 
 Some years after I was married, certainly after 
 my daughter Mildred was born, for some reason,
 
 ODDS AND ENDS 139 
 
 unknown to me at the time, though I had seen 
 and heard nothing of my old sweetheart for 
 years, she began to haunt my thoughts again. 
 I thought of her continually, and the old re- 
 ligious feeling came over me again. After a 
 time I heard that she had returned to East- 
 bourne and was about to open a shop, under the 
 name of "Ruth and Muriel," I think. Of course 
 it wasn't "Ruth and Muriel," nor is Ruth the 
 real name of "my sweetheart when a boy." 
 She is still living and one must keep one or two 
 secrets to save one's face. I was irresistibly 
 tempted to write to her to tell her of myself and 
 mine. I reminded her of an old dream she had 
 years before. She dreamt that she saw me married 
 to a woman whom she could not recognize, that we 
 had a little girl, and that she would not speak to 
 me. That dream, I reminded her, had come true 
 in every detail. I sent her Clarions and verses 
 from Omar. Then, after the shop had been 
 opened some time I heard she was married. 
 
 Shortly afterwards the shop was closed. Poor 
 Ruth! I am afraid we are neither of us over 
 fortunate. 
 
 The woman in Ashford Road who kept the 
 house in which my grandmother had been taken 
 ill was thinking of going to America, so I, having 
 sold all the old lady's furniture, took a furnished 
 lodging in a slightly better class house in a better 
 class street.
 
 CHAPTER XV 
 
 A YEAR OF DARK DAYS 
 
 I WAS employed at the Liberal Club for about 
 two years. Then a new steward was appointed, 
 a polished corner-stone of the particular religious 
 community to which he belonged. He wanted 
 me to work fifteen hours a day for ten shillings 
 a week. I was to sleep out and board myself 
 out of that. I did not like the man, and he 
 wanted to get his brother into my place. He 
 could not discharge me on account of my posi- 
 tion in the party; so I discharged myself. His 
 brother was, from his point of view, an ideal 
 servant. He had been employed as a potman 
 in London, working fifteen or sixteen hours a 
 day with only one day off once a month! 
 
 During the thirteen months which followed I 
 had only two months' work. I left the Club at 
 the end of January, 1890. My grandmother died 
 in the March. I was parted from Ruth in the 
 May. It never rains but it pours. 
 
 For some time, until I got something to do 
 to occupy my mind, I walked about lonely roads 
 
 140
 
 A YEAR OF DARK DAYS 141 
 
 and fields, feeling about as miserable as any 
 poor devil need wish to. Religion was precious 
 little consolation to me, though I continued to 
 go to the chapel regularly and read pious books. 
 At the chapel I met a retired civil servant who 
 lived near Eastbourne, who befriended me, 
 giving me both money and advice. At my 
 lodgings I tried to bury myself in the few books 
 I had or could get. I varied the "pious" read- 
 ing by going through Paradise Lost and the 
 histories of France and Germany. My friends 
 the Strettons, while they could not give me work, 
 gave me an occasional meal. 
 
 In July and August I assisted the Liberal 
 agent, as usual, with the registration work, 
 looking up occupiers who had moved, getting 
 "old lodgers" to renew their claims to the vote 
 and "new lodgers" to fill in and sign claims. 
 This work generally lasted four weeks and three 
 days, and as I was paid five shillings a day it 
 was very welcome, as it enabled me to get badly 
 needed boots and clothing to say nothing of 
 regular meals. 
 
 There had originally been two registration 
 agents employed for the Eastbourne division, 
 but one of them had been discharged and had 
 taken a cottage at a village called Hadlow Down, 
 which is, I believe, about twenty miles from 
 Eastbourne. From this place he drove into 
 Eastbourne two or three times a week in a spring
 
 142 GEORGE MEEK 
 
 cart with butter, eggs, poultry, pork, rabbits 
 and other things, becoming what is known 
 locally as a "huckster." One day, just after I had 
 finished the registration work that would be 
 after August 20 I met him near the railway 
 station, and he suggested that, as I had nothing 
 to do, I should have a week or two out in the 
 country hop-picking. So I gave up my lodgings 
 and, getting Horace Stretton to warehouse my 
 belongings in their coach-house, pawned my 
 Sunday clothes to raise the fare to Heathfield. 
 
 (Speaking of the pawnshop reminds me of 
 an incident which occurred when I was a boy. 
 We had just moved from Willingdon to East- 
 bourne, and the annual Sunday school treat was 
 to be held at the former place on a Wednesday. 
 I was very anxious to go; it was, I fancy, the 
 week after I was discharged from my first situa- 
 tion; at any rate, I had nothing to do and my 
 mother had no money. So she sent me to pawn 
 a thick shawl she had. This was my first ex- 
 perience of the pawnshop. I got two shillings 
 on the shawl, out of which my mother gave me 
 sixpence to go to the treat. As I have had so 
 many unkind things to say of her I am glad to 
 have recalled this incident. I remember that 
 when I got to Willingdon I made myself ridiculous 
 by affecting to talk like the town people it was 
 then the fad to drop all the final r's a fad some 
 people still affect.)
 
 A YEAH OF DARK DAYS 143 
 
 I provided myself with a sixpenny pork-pie and 
 some groceries to take out to Hadlow Down, but 
 I left the pork-pie on the corner of the Strettons' 
 piano. From Heathfield I had a long walk of 
 seven miles to Hadlow Down. Buxted is the 
 nearest railway station, but it is much farther 
 from Eastbourne, and consequently costs more 
 to reach. When I got to the village Mrs. Ashby 
 the wife of the ex-registration agent said she 
 was sorry, but she could not put me up. She 
 recommended me to a neighbouring cottage, 
 where the people let me have a room, and she sold 
 me some pork for my Sunday dinner on credit. 
 She was a very fine soprano singer and had been 
 on the stage. 
 
 The people to whom she sent me had a large 
 cottage standing in a very large garden, which 
 was their own freehold property. The father 
 was a bricklayer, working on his own account. 
 He was very old and very deaf. There were 
 two sons and two daughters away and three 
 sons at home. The mother was a homely old 
 country woman, a Calvinist: for a great many 
 years her brother-in-law was a leading minister 
 among the Strict Baptists. 
 
 I did not commence hop-picking until the 
 following Thursday. On the Wednesday I 
 walked down to East Hoathly, where there were 
 anniversary services at the Calvinist chapel. 
 On the way there I passed a beautiful house
 
 144 GEORGE MEEK 
 
 occupied by a Mr. Smith, a member of the firm 
 of coal merchants of which Mr. Compton Rickett, 
 M.P., is a partner. I had to walk back in the 
 dark and it rained steadily all the way. The road 
 wound through woods there is a place called 
 "Black Boys" on the way, probably a corruption 
 of "Black Bois," as this was formerly a very 
 heavily wooded country forming part of Ashdown 
 Forest and the drip, drip of the water from 
 leaf to leaf was weird. 
 
 As on my earlier experience at Wadhurst and 
 Mayfield, I picked hops on two different farms, 
 but I earned hardly enough to keep myself and 
 pay my lodgings. I had to borrow half-a- 
 sovereign from a friend in Eastbourne. To get 
 this I had to go down by train, and Horace Stret- 
 ton's wife he was then married gave me two 
 nights' lodging and my food, for which she would 
 not let me pay her. The friend who lent me the 
 ten shillings was Henry Bradford, the Baptist min- 
 ister, one of the very few Christians I have met 
 worth the name. 
 
 In spite of this little trouble, and though I 
 was still miserable on account of Ruth, and part 
 of the time suffered agonies from the toothache 
 which I had contracted through breaking a tooth 
 on cracking a hazel-nut, the month I spent in this 
 village was an interesting time. The cottage 
 where I lodged stood on sloping ground facing 
 south. Of the three sons at home the youngest
 
 A YEAR OF DARK DAYS 145 
 
 was a school-boy, the pet of the family; the 
 second was rather ill-conditioned and quarrel- 
 some; the eldest rather a nice young fellow, 
 who had worked in Eastbourne; he was fond 
 of shooting, and some years afterwards lost a 
 hand through an accident with his gun. The 
 mother, who like the rest was engaged in the 
 hop gardens, wore a large brown sun-bonnet. 
 When I went home one night, when I had been 
 there about a week, I saw some one wearing such 
 a big brown bonnet stooping over the stove 
 lighting the fire. I thought it was the old lady, 
 instead of which it was a very young and very 
 handsome one. One of the daughters, the only 
 unmarried one, had come home from service. 
 
 I give her the name of Lois. She was a fine 
 type of rustic beauty, fair, full-figured, a "Venus 
 de Milo." She attracted me at once, but not 
 enough then to make me forget Ruth. We had 
 a few walks together; in the retrospect I am 
 inclined to think her a bit of a flirt. One walk we 
 had with her youngest brother to see some inter- 
 esting people who lived in an old cottage some 
 distance away. They had "seen better days"; 
 there were several children nearly grown up, one 
 daughter quite. 
 
 They had come from Brighton, where some 
 misfortune had befallen them I think their father 
 had deserted them and their mother to go off 
 with another woman and they stood at the
 
 146 GEORGE MEEK 
 
 next bin to mine in the hop gardens. I gave, 
 or lent, one of them a book on astronomy I had 
 with me. 
 
 After Lois came home we had some pleasant 
 evenings. She brightened the place up; some 
 girl friends came in occasionally and there was 
 some singing hymns, of course. I occupied a 
 room on the ground -floor opening on to the 
 kitchen. It had the finest bed in it I have ever 
 slept on, a great down one into which one seemed 
 to sink. On week days we were up at five in the 
 morning to get to the gardens, where we worked 
 from six in the morning till half -past five at night. 
 I usually went home very, very tired, but after a 
 cup of tea and a rest was fresh enough for a long 
 walk, gathering blackberries or hazel-nuts. 
 
 Then followed a visit to Tunbridge Wells in 
 search of work a vain search, of course. Here 
 I saw Mr. Brown's, the Eastbourne Liberal 
 agent's family: they lived at Southborough, and 
 gave me a nice tea when I called. They were 
 Strict Baptists like myself, and I remember a 
 daughter regretting that one of her brothers had 
 "gone over to those wicked Socialists." I had 
 heard of only one Socialist previous to this, a 
 workman- who had come to Eastbourne for a 
 time and had refused to support the Liberals. 
 
 From Tunbridge Wells I tried to walk to 
 Hastings, but night coming on and being penniless 
 I turned back to Wadhurst. I don't think I ever
 
 A YEAR OF DARK DAYS 147 
 
 felt more utterly despairing than I did that night ; 
 everything, in every direction, seemed quite 
 hopeless. 
 
 At Wadhurst I called upon a Rev. Mr. Win- 
 slow, a Calvinist minister, a connection, I be- 
 lieve, of the Forbes- Winslow family. He lent 
 me two shillings on a book, Hawker's Portions, 
 I had with me (Ruth had given me that book 
 the previous year as a birthday present). I 
 lodged at a coffee-house in Wadhurst that night 
 and the following day walked into Hastings, 
 getting there very late at night after my cousin 
 Hairy and his family had gone to bed. But 
 he got up and gave me some supper and a night's 
 lodging. 
 
 The next day I walked by way of Winchelsea 
 and Rye to Lydd. Across Romney Marsh it 
 rained a steady drizzle. It was dark when I got 
 into Lydd. I had no money, but I sold a knife 
 or something I had for the price of a bed, and 
 slept at a small cottage, leaving some religious 
 book I had behind, as the people were very kind. 
 It seemed useless to go on any further, so I re- 
 turned that day to Hastings and the next to 
 Eastbourne, walking all the way. My old land- 
 lady in Bridger's Yard put me up for a few nights, 
 and Nash, at the "general" shop in South Street 
 let me have some food and tobacco on credit. 
 The walk from Hastings into Eastbourne was 
 memorable. I was hungry, and ate all the few
 
 148 GEORGE MEEK 
 
 blackberries I could find on the bushes as I crossed 
 the Crumbles. I had no tobacco, and I burnt a 
 hole in a wooden pipe I had trying to burn the 
 dust I could scrape from the sides.
 
 CHAPTER XVI 
 
 I ADOPT MY PROFESSION 
 
 WHATEVER significance there may be in the 
 number thirteen, I have reason to remember it. 
 Ruth's birthday is on the thirteenth of the 
 month. I was parted from her on the thirteenth 
 of May. (I lost one of my numerous chairs on the 
 thirteenth of another May 1907), and I sank to 
 the "profession" of bathchair-man on the thir- 
 teenth of February 1891, eighteen years ago 
 to-morrow! Also I received the letter which 
 announced the acceptance of this book by its 
 publishers on the thirteenth of November 1909. 
 
 I say "sank" advisedly. Rightly or wrongly, 
 I had always considered bathchair work beneath 
 me, and bathchair-men, as a class, disreputable. 
 Probably I was imbued with some of Ruth's 
 "genteel" ideas. I have seen since that it would 
 have been a very good thing for me if I had 
 filled in my spare time during the two summers 
 I was at the Club with a chair. There was very 
 good money indeed to be earned in those days, 
 and even if my earnings had not enabled me to 
 
 149
 
 150 GEORGE MEEK 
 
 get a chair of my own, they would have made 
 my grandmother's last days more comfortable. 
 It was quite the usual thing for men to earn over 
 two pounds a week all through August and 
 September then. But now! 
 
 The way I came to take out a licence at last 
 was this. I knew an old bathchair-man at Old 
 Town, a Liberal friend of mine, and while warn- 
 ing me that at that time of the year I could not 
 expect to earn much money, he suggested that 
 it would be better for me to have a try at the 
 work than go week after week standing about 
 doing nothing. Superintendent Newnam had 
 known me for years, and I readily obtained my 
 licence. I started with an old-fashioned lever 
 spring chair, not a very good one I am afraid, 
 but I happened to get two or three regular cus- 
 tomers and did very well the first year. People 
 should only follow chair work for one year, as 
 I notice that almost every one does better the 
 first year than they do afterwards. 
 
 After a week or two I overcame my aversion 
 to my new employment. It was something to do, 
 anyway, and I earned money nearly every day. 
 Having had to go on short commons for a long 
 time previously I found it very tiring at first, but 
 I did not mind that. Buoyed up with hope of 
 success, I wrote to Ruth's brother asking that 
 we might become friends again not that we 
 should be engaged, but that I might see her now
 
 I ADOPT MY PROFESSION 151 
 
 and then. These letters made him very angry 
 and gave rise to scenes at home, so her mother 
 told Ruth to write to me making an appointment 
 with me in Water Lane. Here I waited for her 
 late one evening, and she came tripping along 
 like, as I thought, a very fairy. We had a long 
 talk she begged of me not to write to her brother 
 again, but to work and wait patiently, trusting 
 in God. It was our very last walk together. 
 Later in the year she, having left the shop at 
 which she worked the year before, used to go 
 to a house in Upperton Gardens, where she had 
 a private customer. She took me quite by sur,- 
 prise by speaking to me one day at the corner 
 of the street where I used to stand with my chair. 
 We spoke once or twice more as she was going or 
 coming from this place; then she told me we 
 must n't speak any more, there were too many 
 "newsagents" about, and I have never heard the 
 sound of her voice since. I have seen her once, 
 the day before I attended the Tunbridge Wells 
 conference of 1907, which crowned the political 
 work I have achieved up to now. I had taken 
 a lady in my chair up to the Old Town to look at 
 the church. While she was inside Ruth came out 
 of a house opposite and paused a few moments on 
 the pavement looking across at me. I longed to 
 speak to her, but I hardly knew how she would 
 receive me. I have caused her, I am afraid, 
 a good deal of trouble, and I expected my fare to
 
 152 GEORGE MEEK 
 
 come out of the church every moment. I know I 
 felt infinitely sad. Then last autumn, when I 
 had been very ill, I took my little daughter one 
 Sunday up into South Fields for a walk. I had 
 to walk very slowly on account of my extreme 
 weakness, I remember, and on the way we passed 
 a woman with a child in long clothes in her arms. 
 I thought it was Ruth, but she had a large hat on 
 and held her head down so that I could not see 
 her face. 
 
 During 1891 and 1892 I still attended the 
 chapel regularly. I hired my first chair on the 
 understanding that I should "pay in" a quarter 
 of my earnings. This often amounted to 6s. 6d. 
 or js. Then I hired a cee-spring chair, for 
 which I paid 6s. per week, and left the Upperton 
 district, where the work had slackened, to ply 
 for hire on the Front near the Grand Hotel. 
 Here I had a good season, earning, for me, wonder- 
 ful money. I borrowed the money of a local loan 
 society to buy a chair, but I was taken in over 
 it : it needed so much repairing I had to get rid of 
 it the next year and go on hiring again. 
 
 During my first year at chair work we had two 
 great storms at Eastbourne: one a blizzard with 
 much snow early in March; the other a tremen- 
 dous gale -in November. During the latter a 
 chimney blew down at a house in Lismore Road. 
 It crashed through two floors and killed the cook 
 while she was dishing up the luncheon in the
 
 I ADOPT MY PROFESSION 153 
 
 kitchen below. I was outside a few minutes after 
 while they were trying to get the body out from 
 under the debris. This was a storm and no mis- 
 take. It was almost impossible for one to keep 
 one's footing in the streets. 
 
 I did fairly well up to Christmas. I was 
 lodging with a man who had the laziest woman 
 for a wife that I have ever seen. Some years 
 afterwards she met with a tragic end. She was 
 burnt to death while lying in bed reading Tit- 
 Bits. Another landlady used to pawn her hus- 
 band's clean linen for drink. Another, a member 
 of the chapel I attended, was so particular one 
 did n't dare drop a crumb on the floor. 
 
 The following year I did indifferently well all 
 the spring with my chair. The general election 
 "arriving" in June I was glad to give it up for a 
 time. I was employed as clerk at the central 
 committee rooms at five shillings per day. Dur- 
 ing this time I suppose my religious scruples 
 were giving way. I know I read Carlyle's French 
 Revolution and Eugene Sue's Wandering Jew 
 while at the political work, though all this year 
 I attended chapel regularly and did not work on 
 Sundays. If I had customers who rode on Sun- 
 days I always got some one else to take them, 
 and lost two or three thereby. I had been bap- 
 tized the previous year and made a member of 
 the chapel. 
 
 After my last interview with Ruth I made up
 
 154 GEORGE MEEK 
 
 my mind to try to forget her in the company 
 of others. I walked out a few times with a cook, 
 a fellow member of the chapel, who gave me the 
 sack because I would not sit down in the corner 
 of a field near Rodmell with her. Then Lois 
 wrote to me to visit her at Hadlow Down one 
 week end. She went into service at Ivy House, 
 Ore. Here, while I was "electioneering," and 
 afterwards while I was at work in the Liberal 
 agent's office, I used to visit her on Sundays. I 
 am afraid I spent a good deal of money on her. 
 She was a fine-looking girl to be seen with, and 
 I thought it worth while. We had some fine 
 walks together about Hastings. 
 
 Then she began to have scruples. She had an 
 old lover in Canada, a pastry cook, and she thought 
 she "was not doing right by him." There was 
 another girl named Louie in the house, a frail, 
 fair girl, very vivacious. I transferred my affec- 
 tions to her, but after we had corresponded and 
 kept company for a time she took a fancy to a 
 postman and gave me up in his favour. She 
 discovered afterwards that he was married. 
 
 The time at the election committee rooms, 
 where I had some enjoyment in long tricycle 
 rides I had to take into the country, and the 
 fun we had with the opposing party, with the 
 five weeks or so in the registration cffice which 
 followed, made me reluctant to return to the 
 chair work of which I was already heartily sick,
 
 I ADOPT MY PROFESSION 155 
 
 But needs must when the devil drives. I had 
 nothing else to do, but I had become unfitted 
 for it, and having only a very poor chair to work 
 with I made a bad season. 
 
 It was about this time I became a Socialist 
 definitely. I had a copy of Looking Backward 
 given me, as well as Morrison Davidson's Old 
 Order and the New, and my faith in the Liberal 
 party was undermined. Advertisements in one 
 of these books led me to subscribe to the Clarion, 
 Justice and the Workman's Times. I drifted 
 farther and farther away from orthodox Liberal- 
 ism until, holding open-air meetings in the spring 
 of '93, at which I advised my hearers to help 
 form an I. L. P. group, I was expelled from the 
 party. I had been on the executive committee 
 and the district council, and Mr. Brown had 
 promised me that had Admiral Brand, the Liberal 
 candidate, been returned at that election, I should 
 have been appointed permanent assistant registra- 
 tion agent at a good salary. 
 
 The winter of '92-3 saw the decline of both 
 my religion and morals. The morals went first. 
 Lois had just given me my conge. I was either 
 out of work or doing very little. I was intensely 
 depressed, and I happened to be alone with a girl 
 who had been "chasing" me. It seemed ironical 
 that while the girls I wanted usually fair ones 
 eluded me, girls I did n't by any means want 
 were always after me, This was one of them. I
 
 156 GEORGE MEEK 
 
 "took advantage" of her. It was the first time 
 I had known a woman, and for days afterwards 
 I was overpowered with a sense of shame and of 
 something lost. 
 
 I was having a very bad time in every way. 
 Try how I would, failure and disappointment met 
 me in every direction. It was to some extent my 
 own fault. I had always been so short of money 
 that when I did get to earn fairly large sums I 
 could n't take care of it. The luxury of having 
 more than was absolutely necessary to keep body 
 and soul together proved too much for me. Be- 
 sides, even when I was trying to forget Ruth 
 in the company of other women, the thought of 
 her rankled. 
 
 My old agnosticism began to reassert itself. 
 The Calvinistic doctrines began to present them- 
 selves in all their naked absurdity. I began to 
 question the justice, and afterwards the prob- 
 ability, of people being brought into this world 
 without their consent to suffer long years of 
 worry, pain and misery here and endless tor- 
 ments hereafter. My Socialism made me more 
 humanitarian, and I wanted to live a fuller life 
 than the bondage of religious tenets would per- 
 mit. Carlyle and Sue had whetted my appetite 
 for more secular literature. 
 
 I continued my daily prayers and my attend- 
 ance at chapel for some time; then I communi- 
 cated my doubts to my friend the deacon and
 
 I ADOPT MY PROFESSION 157 
 
 the minister. My letters were read before the 
 assembled church, and I was suspended from my 
 membership. There was some talk of, and I had 
 hoped for, my becoming a minister in time. If I 
 could have repressed my doubts, continued to 
 make a profession of religion, and acted with a 
 little "worldly wisdom" I could have made my 
 way very well. As it was I lost some of my best 
 friends. Similarly, if I could have concealed 
 the change in my political views and remained 
 with the Liberals my knowledge and experience 
 of political work would doubtless have procured 
 me some advancement in time. 
 
 In the following spring I made another attempt 
 to get work in London, but failed. I sank so 
 low whilst I was there I had to go into a Sal- 
 vation Army "elevator," and a horrible place I 
 found it. I got in touch with the S. D. P. and 
 the Fabian Society, however, during this visit; 
 for the latter I sold pamphlets at the Eight-Hour 
 Day Demonstration on May Day. John Burns 
 and G. B. Shaw were speaking there. I paid 
 the latter the money I had received for the pam- 
 phlets, and he put it into his pocket without 
 looking at it. And I was literally starving! 1 A 
 distant cousin helped me to return to Eastbourne, 
 where I organized a local Fabian Society and 
 
 1 A friend thinks this reference to G. B. S. unfair. It is not 
 intended to be so. The point is, I might have kept some of the 
 coppers and he would not have known.
 
 158 GEORGE MEEK 
 
 several open-air meetings. At these I had as 
 principal speakers H. R. Smart and John Ward. 
 A local publican, accompanied by a lot of drunken 
 roughs, tried to break up one of our meetings on 
 the Wish Tower grounds. He has since lost 
 his licence through no good conduct, you may 
 be sure.
 
 CHAPTER XVII 
 
 THE CURSE OF CASUAL EMPLOYMENT 
 
 WITH short intervals when I could get no chair 
 to draw, I have been at chair work ever since, with 
 varying luck. I have had some good customers 
 the late Hon. Walter Bateman Hanbury, with 
 whom I earned seven pounds in a fortnight, and 
 his aunt, Lady Northwick of Worcestershire. 
 These were both ideal kindly aristocrats, consid- 
 erate, genial, paying well. I shall never forget the 
 Hon. W.'s pleasing pensive face. He had been for 
 some years ranching in South America. He had 
 entirely lost the use of his legs, and had to be lifted 
 in and out of the chair. He employed me for two 
 seasons. Then his lady friends persuaded him that 
 I was not strong enough, or could not see well 
 enough, or charged too much anyway the fol- 
 lowing summer he brought his own private chair 
 and his man had to draw him about. 
 
 He gave me the best dog I ever had, an Aber- 
 deen terrier. But more of this quaint animal 
 later on. 
 
 I have had other good customers from whom 
 159
 
 160 GEORGE MEEK 
 
 for a time a few days, or a few weeks it may 
 be I have earned good money. But these are 
 few and far between. As a rule the life is a long 
 state of worry, debt and despair. Day after day, 
 week after week, always "hoping for something 
 to turn up" which seldom or never does turn up, 
 one drags on, getting deeper in debt, and in con- 
 sequence a worse name with chair-owners, land- 
 lords, tradesmen. 
 
 Till the motor came we could look forward to 
 doing fairly well in August and September, and 
 so being able to pay off old scores. But now we 
 do rather worse during the summer season than 
 at other times. I am writing this on the igth of 
 August 1908. During the month so far I have 
 earned only one casual shilling. I have a small 
 contract job, but I am free from twelve o'clock 
 every day. And the other men are standing about 
 in glum hopelessness. 
 
 Sometimes there are a few jobs at the Grand 
 Hotel, then one will get up there before six o'clock 
 to get "first turn," standing there till eleven be- 
 fore there is any likelihood of work. I have done 
 this many a time in the depth of winter. The rule 
 is that if you get out early in the morning to get 
 a stand, you must not leave your chair for any 
 length of time until dinner time. Some of the 
 bounders, however, do not keep this rule; they 
 slip away for an hour or so to breakfast. One of 
 them was fined for that last autumn. The police,
 
 CASUAL EMPLOYMENT 161 
 
 however, only worry us by fits and starts. Some 
 one goes to the Town Hall and complains that 
 they found some chair unattended when they 
 wanted to hire it; then we have to be careful for 
 a week or two. As a rule we do not leave our 
 chairs for long: we are most of us too anxious to 
 get work. Occasionally a man having extra money 
 from some source or other will leave his chair to 
 sit in a public-house, but this does not occur very 
 often. As a rule I have noticed it hundreds of 
 times one may stand by one's chair for hours 
 without moving and get no call, then directly one 
 goes away, even if it is only for a few minutes, a 
 customer comes along. It is part of the general 
 cussedness of things. 
 
 If you would know the horror of black despair 
 go out with a bathchair day after day, with chair- 
 owner or landlord worrying you for rent, food 
 needed at home, and get nothing. Stare till your 
 eyes ache; pray with aching heart to a God whom 
 you ultimately curse for His deafness. And this 
 not for a few weeks, but year after year. 
 
 Among the chair-men I have known since I first 
 began to work at the calling seven have gone mad, 
 many have taken to drink, others have died in 
 the workhouse or are there still. The work de- 
 moralizes every one in some way. It sets man 
 against man. Some will do the meanest things to 
 get work away from others. For instance, men 
 have gone to my customers and told them I
 
 162 GEODGE MEEK 
 
 could not see, or that I was a Socialist, or that I 
 drank. It is quite a common thing for me to 
 get customers and suddenly lose them. One of 
 the men tried to get the contract work I was 
 doing last year away from me by telling the lady 
 I was a Socialist, but she happened to be that rara 
 avis a sensible woman and took no notice of it. 
 In fact, she gave me some of Mr. Wells 's books, 
 besides some of the R. P. A. cheap reprints. 
 
 While demanding the strength of a man, chair 
 work does not enable him to live and pay his way 
 honestly, even if he has a chair of his own, un- 
 less he has some other source of income. It is 
 suitable for pensioners or those who can find em- 
 ployment at house or other work in their spare 
 time. These jobs used to be common years ago, 
 but since Germans are cheap and have become 
 commonly employed by boarding- and lodging- 
 house keepers, they are not to be had. Reservists 
 in the German army are being maintained here, 
 and they keep Englishmen out of employment 
 in towns like this where there are hundreds of 
 unemployed. They sleep in the pantry with the 
 food, the scullery or even the coal-cellar. Some 
 of them get up early in the summer-time and 
 bike round the country. If ever they have oc- 
 casion to use it, they will have greater knowledge 
 of our roads than we have ourselves. 
 
 Since I first began work as a chair-man I have 
 done my level best to get additional work. I did
 
 CASUAL EMPLOYMENT 163 
 
 the housework of two schools during one year 
 while the South African war was on. But some 
 one else wanted the work, and offered to do it 
 for less money. Then I had a turn (Levant les 
 scenes at the local theatre. I have tried window- 
 cleaning, everything I could think of to fill in 
 the blank hours, but always some one else has 
 wanted the work and edged me out of it. East- 
 bourne is one of the loveliest pleasure towns in 
 England. It is the paradise of the idle and some- 
 times vicious rich, the rest-place of jaded well- 
 paid workers; but it is a hell to the poor who try 
 to live in it by casual labour. 
 
 In my early chair days our fare was a shilling 
 per hour. We used to charge one-and-six where 
 we could get it, but we were liable to be taken 
 from our stands and paid off with a shilling. But 
 in those days there was more demand for us, and 
 we made our own terms when we could. 
 
 Our wooden-headed town council objected. 
 Of course we have a wooden-headed set of town 
 councillors, or we should not be like other bor- 
 oughs. So I called a meeting of the chair-men 
 and we organized ourselves into a union, each 
 man paying a penny a week. We held meetings, 
 worried and threatened the obsolete lot of pre- 
 historic specimens who ruled the town, until they 
 gave in. I have gratefully to acknowledge the 
 help of one councillor, a local architect, a Calvinist 
 and a gentleman. A year or two later when he
 
 164 GEORGE MEEK 
 
 had to stand for re-election he was defeated. 
 Some of my lovely fellow chair-men voted for 
 his opponent because he was a Conservative. I 
 suppose some rabid politicians would give their 
 suffrages to Old Nick in opposition to St. Michael 
 if he ran for their party. 
 
 To the ordinary workman one shilling or one- 
 and-sixpence per hour may sound extravagantly 
 high pay. He must bear in mind that, taking 
 the weather and slack times into consideration, 
 if we do on an average two hours' work a day we 
 are very lucky indeed. And then if we hire our 
 chairs there are four or five shillings a week to pay 
 for them, and if they belong to us it costs some- 
 thing for coach-house and repairs. 
 
 The chair-rent was originally six shillings for 
 the summer, four shillings for the winter per week. 
 An agitation which I joined but did not lead got 
 the summer rent reduced to five shillings. Four 
 shillings all the year round or sixpence a day 
 would be amply sufficient to cover cost of repairs, 
 coach-house, etc., and leave a fair profit, because 
 no one buys a brand new bathchair to let out. 
 They are usually old and half worn out. I know 
 cases in which the annual rent exceeds the first 
 cost of the chair to the owner. 
 
 Naturally the owners are a pretty hard lot. 
 They could not continue to own chairs and make 
 them pay if they were not. I have gone to the 
 coach-house and found the handle taken off my
 
 CASUAL EMPLOYMENT 165 
 
 chair when I have been less than five shillings 
 behind with the rent. 1 They do not give you 
 notice. They slip round to the coach-house early 
 in the morning or late at night after you have 
 put the chair away, take the handle off, and then 
 the next day go and brag about it amongst the 
 men, to show how big they are and to intimi- 
 date others who may be working for them. One 
 day one of them served me this trick. It had 
 been a very dull time, and I had my daughter 
 lying ill with whooping-cough. Instead of pay- 
 ing him that week, what money I had earned had 
 gone for medicine and doctor's fees. I told him 
 so, and he said he couldn't help my sick child: 
 he wanted his rent. Another one, when I told 
 him that my boy was dead, exclaimed, "A good 
 job too ! Now you '11 be able to pay for your chair. ' ' 
 I had paid that man over thirty pounds for a chair 
 that cost him only twenty -five, and I owed him 
 less than thirty shillings. They always remember 
 what you owe, but forget what you have paid. 
 
 One man who had my nose to the grindstone 
 in that way was a coach-builder. I had returned 
 from my tour on behalf of the Socialist movement 
 to find every chair in the town let. I was out of 
 
 1 Since writing the above I hear that Judge Emden has de- 
 cided in the Tunbridge Wells County Court that this is illegal 
 and awarded damages to a chair- man against a chair-owner 
 guilty of it. When the chairs are hired by the week, a week's 
 notice should be given either side.
 
 166 GEORGE MEEK 
 
 work three or four weeks, but though my wife 
 kept me out of her poor earnings as an ironer, I 
 was not sufficiently demoralized to want to keep 
 on living on her. So I searched and searched till 
 I heard of his chair. He left things in the hands 
 of his sons, being too old to manage them him- 
 self. There were four of them. The eldest, a 
 quiet, dreamy painter, fond of doing artistic work ; 
 the others, one, the smith, a member of our fash- 
 ionable church choir, another an ardent Sal- 
 vationist, the last the book-keeper. The chair 
 was an unpopular one: one of the Brighton shape 
 which may be de rigueur in Brighton, but is not 
 well thought of here. 
 
 Anyway it was my only chance, so I took it. 
 I had been agitating for lower chair-rents for 
 some time, and the owners generally had made 
 a dead set against me. Besides, I owed most of 
 them a few shillings. Having paid nearly two 
 hundred pounds in rent during the past seven- 
 teen years, ten pounds would cover all my 
 liabilities to them. 
 
 The coach-builder expected me to pay just the 
 same rent for this chair as though it had been 
 one of the smart popular Bath type. However, 
 I did n't, and indeed I could n't keep him paid 
 regularly. The book-keeping son and the smith 
 kept me pretty well worried between them. At 
 last it happened I got some contract work, ten 
 shillings per week for one hour a day. After a
 
 CASUAL EMPLOYMENT 167 
 
 time, as it appeared likely to last, I suggested 
 that the lady should buy the chair for me, and 
 instead of me paying rent for it she should stop 
 four shillings per week out of my money until 
 it should have been paid for, which she did. Un- 
 fortunately she was only able to get out once 
 a day, and the money I received was necessarily 
 inadequate to meet my ordinary expenses, but 
 she was a kind, genial old lady, and her daughters 
 and the housekeeper, who transacted all the busi- 
 ness, were very kind to me. Unfortunately it 
 did not last. I fell ill and the lady moved to 
 Brighton, so they very considerately repaid me 
 the few pounds I had paid on the chair and it 
 was sold. 
 
 Unfortunately at the time of writing I am still 
 cursed with this casual employment. If there 
 was a God I would pray earnestly and fervently 
 that He would save every man and woman who 
 reads this from that curse. Better be dead and 
 buried out of the way than live so. Blessed are 
 the dead! they are no longer hungry, nor have 
 they rent to pay. Other workers in Eastbourne 
 porters, cabmen, taxi-drivers and so on lead 
 similar lives. A company came here recently to 
 run taxi-cabs. I envied the men who could see 
 to drive motors, but not for long. These poor 
 devils have to pay in seventy -five per cent, of 
 their earnings, and the rest is swallowed up 
 pretty well in garage fees. Do you wonder I am
 
 168 GEORGE MEEK 
 
 a Socialist? Only by the well-ordered combina- 
 tion of the workers as a class-conscious body 
 grounded scientifically can we ever arrive at a 
 better condition of things.
 
 CHAPTER XVIII 
 
 THE BRIGHTER SIDE OF CHAIR-WORK 
 
 I HAVE told you some of the sorrows of our 
 occupation, and of one or two of my decent cus- 
 tomers who made things well for me. Now for 
 a time I must try to tell you of the brighter side, 
 which balances to some extent the dark. Hitherto, 
 I do not mind telling you, I have written under 
 great pressure, and with a certain amount of 
 mental and physical distress. I would be glad 
 and grateful if I could finish this work leisurely 
 and free from worry. After all, I am trying to 
 tell a man 's story of his own life and experience 
 as simply and truthfully as I can. 
 
 What, then, has been the bright side of my 
 work? By nature I am happy and fond of en- 
 joyment. I sing and tell stories, love music, 
 humour and good books. Mein Gottl but if I 
 had only a fair chance of living a decent life, 
 how I should live! 
 
 When things go well (as they do sometimes), 
 we can go out in the morning, knowing we have 
 a decent day's work before us, free from worry. 
 
 169
 
 170 GEORGE MEEK 
 
 If we have engagements we need not hurry out 
 early, we can take our time; there is no master 
 or foreman to interfere with us. 
 
 Sometimes we get customers for whom it is 
 a real pleasure to work. I remember several 
 very nice people. There was one elderly gentle- 
 man who suffered with sciatica. He was very 
 wealthy, and always paid two shillings for every 
 hour. He had a very pleasant manner, and 
 would sit by the sea and talk with his chair-man 
 in a kindly, unaffected way. Then there are the 
 surprises fate springs upon one. I had been 
 doing very badly for a long while, when I got 
 the customer of whom I have been writing. Some- 
 thing induced me to move from one unlikely stand 
 to another at an unlikely time of the morning, 
 but the under-gardener, who had been sent to 
 get a chair, called me from this stand because I 
 was by myself, and, in consequence, I had six 
 weeks' very good regular work, earning over 
 two pounds a week. At another time in De- 
 cember I had waited on a stand near the Grand 
 Hotel till nearly twelve o'clock. Thinking I 
 would try another at the end of Wilmington 
 Square, I made for it by way of Jevington Gar- 
 dens. Here I was hailed by a young lady and 
 taken to Elsing Lodge, a house in Grange Road, 
 to take her mother out. I had that lady once 
 or twice a day for nearly two months. Her hus- 
 band had been, at one time, head-master of
 
 BRIGHT SIDE OF CHAIR-WORK 171 
 
 Cheltenham School, and she had a young daughter 
 a girl of fifteen or so who was a clever "trick" 
 bicycle rider. 
 
 One evening when the late King then Prince 
 of Wales came to Eastbourne to open a cattle 
 show, a lady engaged me to take her to see him 
 pass from the railway-station to Compton Place, 
 where he was staying for the week-end with the 
 late Duke of Devonshire. We were only an 
 hour and a half gone, but when I took the lady 
 back to her house she said, "I must give you 
 something extra, as this is a special occasion." 
 She put some money in my hand, which I did 
 not look at until I had got back on the stand. 
 I thought it was probably two and threepence 
 or half-a-crown ; but when I came to look at it 
 I found it was six shillings. 
 
 One Sunday in June, a few years ago, I had 
 stood from eight in the morning till eight at 
 night on the corner of Wilmington Square with- 
 out earning a penny. I was pretty low-spirited. 
 I was hiring my chair from a very hard man, and 
 I had no money for him or myself either. As I 
 pulled off the stand to go home, a gentleman 
 called to me. I hoped he wanted to engage me, 
 but he only wanted a light. 
 
 "Very busy?" he asked. 
 
 "No," I said; "I 'm sorry to say I Ve been here 
 since eight o 'clock this morning and have n't had 
 a job."
 
 172 GEORGE MEEK 
 
 "That's hard lines," he said; "here's half-a- 
 crown for you. Are you married? " 
 
 "Yes," I said, thanking him. 
 
 "Any children?" he asked. 
 
 "Yes," I said; "one little girl." 
 
 "Oh," he said, putting his hand in his pocket, 
 "here's another five shillings!" 
 
 At another time this, too, was in June I had 
 not been off for five days, and they were fine 
 days, too. My wife was working at a laundry 
 where she could not get her wages till Monday 
 or Tuesday. On the Saturday afternoon she 
 came up to me on the front, near Lansdowne 
 Terrace, to see if I had the money to get our 
 Sunday's dinner. When she found I had had 
 no work I suppose she looked blue; anyway, a 
 gentleman came up to us and asked us what our 
 trouble was. We told him frankly, and he gave 
 us seven and sixpence. 
 
 Once, at the end of a bad January, I was called 
 to a house in Wilmington Square to take a lady 
 out. She took a fancy to my chair, and I had 
 her every day for a week, earning over two 
 pounds. This was Mrs. Inman, of the great 
 steamship company in one of whose vessels I 
 had crossed to New York. As the author of The 
 Blue Moon is so fond of saying, "You never can 
 tell." 
 
 There have been other good customers besides 
 those I have mentioned. There was Mr. W ,
 
 BRIGHT SIDE OF CHAIR- WORK 173 
 
 who paid with a princely hand, but who has 
 since lost his money, and, I believe, died in an 
 asylum. There were many other ladies and 
 gentlemen who treated me well. Chief of these 
 is Mr. , the head of a great industrial con- 
 cern, who has befriended me again and again 
 when I have been in need. Some day, when I 
 am free from this morass of poverty if I ever 
 am I will write more freely of him. 
 
 And the nurses. I must not forget the nurses, 
 bless them! with their cheerful faces and genial 
 ways. First there was a great Scotswoman, with 
 rich blond hair, in attendance on a poor frail girl 
 of sixteen who had overgrown herself. She was a 
 symphony in living flesh, glowing, kindly, sunny. 
 Then I remember a little red-haired fairy of an 
 Irish nurse, a little thing who flitted about doing 
 things and doing everything well cheerful, dainty. 
 She was in company with one of the alleged "smart 
 set, " a woman who wanted to flaunt up and down 
 the parade in her chiffon and feathers making 
 eyes at every one and talking silly. Showing off, 
 anxious only to be looked at and admired, a 
 poseur of poseurs. This nurse was strong, and 
 used to tell her patient not to be or talk so silly. 
 
 I have not met a bad or disagreeable nurse. 
 Will the profession accept my kind respects? 
 When I come to die, which I suppose it is just 
 possible I shall do some day, let me have a nurse 
 near me who has been in long training. I want
 
 174 GEORGE MEEK 
 
 neither doctor nor parson. The first know little 
 of what they profess to know, the latter nothing. 
 
 And one gets always the fresh air. 
 
 If these memories are not finished artistically, 
 and if they seem to jangle, you must bear in 
 mind that I am writing them in the intervals 
 allowed me by my trade. I am not sitting at 
 rest. I have a great chair weighing about three 
 hundredweight to draw, and I am not strong. 
 
 The chair I had last year was in a frightful 
 condition when it was bought for me, but, hav- 
 ing re-lined the body and varnished it, I made it 
 quite passable. Some of the men varnish their 
 own chairs, and make an awful mess of it. Owing 
 to hints received from a coach-painter or two, I 
 did mine fairly well for an amateur. To those 
 who wish to use carriage- varnish, get all the old 
 varnish off with pumice-powder, then get every 
 grain of the pumice-powder off. Begin at the 
 bottom, so that your varnish flows downward, 
 covering your brush-marks. It must be done in 
 a warm, dustless place, and should be on a bright, 
 sunny day. 
 
 However, my advice to those who feel inclined 
 to be bathchair-men is like Punch's advice to 
 those about to marry. You had better go into the 
 workhouse, or do something to get yourself a long 
 spell of penal servitude. 
 
 I have met but few chair-men of whom I could 
 make friends. Those I have to speak of in another
 
 BRIGHT SIDE OF CHAIR-WORK 175 
 
 chapter I knew in my younger days, and their 
 friendship was a doubtful blessing. One or two 
 stand out above the rest, however. There is 
 one little religious chap who, in spite of his limi- 
 tations, is a thoroughly good one. They are, on 
 the whole, a queer lot: broken-down tradesmen, 
 retired soldiers or sailors, men of every de- 
 scription who have failed at everything else, or 
 have been chair-men so long they are unfitted 
 for any other calling. Though there are excep- 
 tions, "once a chair-man, always a chair-man" 
 holds good in most cases. Two of our queerest 
 specimens we owe to the petite bourgeoisie. One 
 is a qualified chemist, the other a grocer; but 
 while one has always been a teetotaler, and the 
 other nearly so, they have some characteristics 
 in common. They are always in trouble. They 
 can do nothing efficiently except talk not even 
 shut a door after them. Any one more hope- 
 lessly helpless and futile it would be difficult to 
 find. 
 
 It has been my habit for a good many years 
 to stand at the corner of Wilmington Square. 
 Here there are a number of luggage-porters, 
 most of whom, as a rule, earn more money than 
 we do, and have often made me regret not be- 
 coming a porter instead of a chair-man. But 
 they are not always "flush." One winter I re- 
 member, on a bitterly cold day, there were four 
 of us two chair-men and two porters standing
 
 176 GEORGE MEEK 
 
 about that corner. We had been there all day, 
 and had n't the price of a drink between us, when 
 a gentleman came along, and "Bummer" one 
 of the porters went up to him and asked him 
 how he was "fixed for coppers." "All right," he 
 said. "Let 's see; there's four of you," and he 
 gave "Bummer" sixpence. It was the Chief 
 Constable!
 
 CHAPTER XIX 
 "DEVANT LES SCENES" 
 
 ONE night, about nine months after I was mar- 
 ried, I was sitting in the old bar at the Devonshire 
 Park drinking a glass of stout, and wondering 
 where I was going to find my week's chair-rent, 
 when Frank, the property-master at the ad- 
 joining theatre, came in and asked if any one 
 there would like a job "supering. " I had agreed 
 to pay six shillings a week for the chair I was 
 drawing at the time, and though it was in May, 
 it being the year when the water went wrong 
 at Eastbourne, things were very, very quiet. So 
 I, and a luggage-porter who happened to be there, 
 promptly volunteered. 
 
 The play was The New Barmaid one of the 
 first, if not the first, of the musical comedies 
 which was being produced at the Devonshire 
 Park Theatre. In the first act we appeared as 
 policemen: it was our duty to "raid" a club 
 and arrest a number of young ladies dressed 
 unconventionally, but very neatly, in short dress- 
 jackets, black satin knickers and black stock- 
 
 12 I 77
 
 178 GEORGE MEEK 
 
 ings, who entered into the spirit of the thing by 
 knocking our helmets off and generally ill-using us, 
 thus anticipating the "new women" of to-day. 
 My own particular amazon, who looked re- 
 markably well even at close quarters in her 
 boyish dress, must have been an athlete she sent 
 my heavy helmet across the footlights into the 
 orchestra with one blow at each performance. In 
 the second act we simply lolled at the back of the 
 stage in somewhat dingy boating gear. Neither 
 at this time nor subsequently have I ever experi- 
 enced "stage fright" or nervousness before the 
 audience, though once, when I had a line to 
 speak with Norman V. Norman's company in 
 Nell Gwynn, I "dried up. " 
 
 The following week I was given a small speak- 
 ing part in a curtain-raiser called Before the Dawn, 
 which preceded the performance of The Late Mr. 
 Costello. Dressed as a coachman, I had to rush 
 on the stage and apologize to a poor tramp for 
 having run over him. But I had a good deal of 
 worry on my mind that week, and could n't get 
 much verve into my performance. 
 
 After this it was some years before I went 
 "behind the scenes" again. Then one night one 
 of the dressers had failed to turn up, and I was 
 engaged in that capacity. This was for Florodora, 
 and I had the "chorus gentlemen" to look after. 
 Some of these were certainly not without some 
 qualifications for the title of "gentlemen," but
 
 DEVANT LES SCENES 179 
 
 one of them was about the most completely 
 shameless blackguard I ever struck. 
 
 The following week I was promoted to the 
 charge of the "second principals" in the Belle of 
 New York. These were a decent lot of boys. 
 Then I was put on as principal dresser, with 
 Henry Neville to attend to one of the best I met 
 during my three years at the theatre. I had the 
 pleasure of dressing him on two visits, and if all 
 actors were like him and Sidney Brough, and 
 a few more, the "dresser's" lot would be an easy 
 and a happy one. 
 
 Sometimes during these three years I "dressed, " 
 sometimes "supered," and now and then acted as 
 "property man. " I did not like the late hours, the 
 stuffy dressing-rooms, or some of the actors, but 
 the supplementary money I earned was welcome. 
 I was more often than not in hot water with some- 
 body the "ladies' " dresser if I got more in tips 
 than she did ; and once I had a serious row with the 
 manager of the refreshment bars. Part of our 
 duties consisted in getting refreshment for the 
 various performers, and any friends they had to 
 visit them. A charge of threepence was made on 
 each glass brought behind the scenes ; this was re- 
 turned when it was taken back. Some of the hands 
 casually employed got into the way of taking the 
 glasses from the bars and then returning them 
 as empties from the theatre and claiming the 
 money. As this money was placed by itself, more
 
 180 GEORGE MEEK 
 
 glasses, of course, were returned than had been 
 paid on, and we dressers were accused of having 
 taken them. I had a scene with the manager 
 and his wife, but, upon placing the facts of the 
 case before Mr. Standen Triggs, the Managing 
 Director of the Park, the refreshment manager, 
 who had refused to serve me any longer, had to 
 apologize and withdraw his taboo against me. 
 
 Finally, the female dresser, who wanted very 
 badly to get some one else into my place, got me 
 the sack, and herself at the same time. 
 
 It was n't all hard work and trouble, however. 
 With some companies the D'Oyly Carte Opera 
 (which included the genial Mr. Workman, who is 
 doing so well at the Savoy) especially it was a 
 pleasure to be there. With Lewis Waller's com- 
 pany in Monsieur Beaucaire I had a pleasant 
 and lively week. I have mentioned Sidney 
 Brough (in The Light that Failed}; I also dressed 
 Mr. Sainsbury the playwright (Sherlock Holmes) 
 and Louis Calvert, and Mr. Kendrick in the pro- 
 duction by Fred Terry and Julia Neilson of Sun- 
 day. Ivouis was very ill, very irritable, but very 
 generous. 
 
 As to the "supering, " I was in several grand 
 operas with a Moody-Manners Opera Company. 
 In the first act of Lohengrin I had to stand on a 
 rostrum at the back of the stage, dressed in a 
 thick metalled tunic, holding a shield and spear, 
 and I wasn't supposed to move for fifty minutes.
 
 181 
 
 All that time three or four large fleas were biting 
 me in the small of my back. They were not 
 there when I resumed the clothes and my stand 
 on the rostrum for the fourth act. 
 
 My last visit to the theatre was to get H. B. 
 Irving and Dorothea Baird's company to sign 
 the petition for the release of Daisy Lord last 
 autumn. Mr. and Mrs. Irving received me most 
 kindly in their dressing-room, and signed my 
 petition readily as also did the rest of their 
 company. 
 
 As to the morals devant les scenes well, they 
 are just the same as they are anywhere else 
 some and some. Some of the poorer musical 
 comedy companies left much to be desired 
 probably because their personnel were poorly 
 paid.
 
 CHAPTER XX 
 
 OTHER LOVES 
 
 How many different lives have I lived during 
 the past twenty years? The life of work, the 
 religious life, the political, the erotic, the lives 
 of pleasure and study. That makes half-a-dozen. 
 And I have lived them all strenuously. Not to 
 speak of my home life in which most of them 
 centred. 
 
 My relations with women have been peculiar 
 if not extensive. I am fond of fair women, yet 
 I could never get but one fair woman to care 
 for me, and I am ashamed to say I would not 
 marry her because she had a child. Like my 
 poor grandmother she had been victimized when 
 very young. She was otherwise a virtuous girl: 
 a plump, intelligent, happy-natured girl, fond of 
 fun and virtuous. I do not know what has become 
 of her. She deserved a happy life. 
 
 My first effort at Socialist organization fell 
 through owing to most of the members of our 
 Fabian Society leaving the town. I returned 
 to the chair work. I had quite given up the 
 chapel, and began to mix with very questionable 
 
 182
 
 OTHER LOVES 183 
 
 company. I had met with so many disappoint- 
 ments from them that I had grown tired of 
 treating women always with consideration and 
 respect. I made up my mind to be revenged on 
 the sex per se. 
 
 One young bathchair-man whom I had pre- 
 viously abhorred for his loose life I now made 
 my constant companion. I wanted to see "life." 
 We did not drink much: a glass or two of ginger 
 wine or ale during the evening was the extent 
 of our excesses in that direction. But we scraped 
 acquaintance with girls on the parades or in Ter- 
 minus Road, and usually we had half-a-dozen or 
 more going at the same time. If we found them 
 agreeable we kept to them more or less, if not 
 we let them go. But whatever "Weak Chest" 
 the nickname of my companion intended, I was 
 all the time secretly looking out for a girl whom I 
 thought I could marry. He kept most of the 
 complaisant ones to himself, though a few came 
 my way; but I preferred those he could not 
 seduce, because I hoped to find a mate amongst 
 them. 
 
 I left his companionship for a time to go back 
 to Louie, who had written to me, having dis- 
 covered her postman lover's perfidy. I spent 
 the summer of '94 courting her. I used to get 
 up at three o'clock on the Sundays when it was 
 her morning out and walk the sixteen miles to 
 Hastings so as to miss none of the time she had
 
 184 GEORGE MEEK 
 
 at liberty, because the first train from East- 
 bourne did not reach there before nearly mid- 
 day. We had some good times together. I 
 could earn good money those summers, so that 
 I could afford days off. Sometimes when it was 
 her afternoon out I earned five or six shillings 
 before dinner! At last she agreed to marry me, 
 and the banns were put up at Eastbourne and 
 her home at Tunbridge Wells: then she changed 
 her mind at the last minute. She returned me 
 my ring a chased gold one with "Mizpah" in 
 highly burnished lettering on it which had cost 
 me fifteen shillings. She has since married and 
 had children, but I understand she has always 
 been very delicate, so perhaps it was just as well 
 I did lose her. 
 
 Her treachery upset me very much, and partly 
 through that and partly through the dread of the 
 winter I became very depressed. "Weak Chest " 
 had always been in the habit of taking drugs of 
 various sorts. Among these was crude opium, 
 which he swallowed in small pellets. I got some 
 twopenny-worth, I think and swallowed the 
 lot, washing it down with a pint of Burton ale and 
 hoping I should never wake again. Fortunately, 
 or unfortunately, I did, but I was confined to my 
 bed for a week afterwards. When I got about 
 again I resumed my nightly prowls with "Weak 
 Chest." 
 
 I had two or three more disappointments.
 
 OTHER LOVES 185 
 
 One was a little fair girl a laundry-maid at the 
 Grand with whom I went out a few times, 
 treating her to the theatre. I treated her with 
 respect, but found afterwards that she deserved 
 none. Another, a tiny dot of a nurse girl from 
 Cornwall proved to be "no better than she 
 should be." And she looked so innocent! We 
 met with all sorts, big and little, chaste and 
 unchaste, moral and very much immoral. 
 
 "Weak Chest" had a companion called "Escol- 
 lopes, " a dark, half -balmy, but wholly cunning 
 yokel. I could not endure this man. Even as it 
 was if I could have found a really nice girl to 
 care for me I should have broken away from their 
 company a long while before I did. 
 
 Then there was another girl who pretended to 
 be strictly virtuous, but whom we discovered 
 was not; a fair girl with thick protruding lips 
 whom I might have married if my wife had 
 served me the same as Louie had done. I was 
 keeping company with both of them at the same 
 time. I did n't mean to be sold a second time. 
 She wrote to me a day or two after I was married 
 and my wife opened the letter. 
 
 Then there were two sisters, one married, one 
 single: the married one was not a prude, the 
 single one was. 
 
 I met my wife through the introduction of a 
 friend. She was a petite dark girl, a native of 
 Windsor. I was tired of the fast life I was leading.
 
 186 GEORGE MEEK 
 
 So we married. I have never been sorry. She has 
 been a good and faithful wife. I have been a bad, 
 but faithful husband. She is usually cheerful as a 
 cricket. Considering what we have gone through 
 and the natural shortcomings of her husband she 
 keeps her happiness remarkably well. She is fond 
 of singing, and used to be fond of dancing. A 
 clever girl, she was formerly a leader in the Band of 
 Hope movement in her native town. Her father's 
 mother was a Bunyan, a direct descendant of the 
 author of the Pilgrim's Progress. I regard her, 
 as I have every reason to, with the deepest affec- 
 tion and respect, though she does n't always think 
 I do. I shall have more to say of her presently. 
 We were married on November 23, 1895. I was 
 then twenty-seven.
 
 CHAPTER XXI 
 
 FIELD LANE 
 
 I HAVE made several journeys to London in 
 search of that most elusive of earthly blessings 
 for the worker constant employment. One 
 such brought me into contact with the C. O. S. 
 and with another institution where the treat- 
 ment of the unfortunate unemployed contrasts 
 very favourably with what is accorded them by 
 that body. 
 
 When I landed in town I had the better part 
 of a sovereign if not more in my pocket. 
 My first care was to provide myself with lodg- 
 ings for at least a week, and benefiting by earlier 
 experiences I did it by paying for them in ad- 
 vance at one of those "Pearce and Plenty" tem- 
 perance hotels very useful places for those who 
 can afford them. I did n't know of the existence 
 of the "Rowton Houses" till later, else for the 
 same money I could have procured shelter for a 
 fortnight. 
 
 I spent this week in going from place to place 
 answering advertisements principally from the 
 
 187
 
 188 GEORGE MEEK 
 
 Daily Chronicle, but without getting a berth. I 
 had references and decent clothes. Then, my 
 time being up, and my money all gone, I spent 
 a night or two on the Albert Embankment, where 
 I met an unemployed brass-fitter who advised 
 me to apply to the C. O. S. and the Field Lane 
 Homes. 
 
 This I did the next day. I was kept waiting 
 some time at the C. O. S. office near Shaftesbury 
 Avenue. Then I was interviewed by a super- 
 cilious young man and woman, who advised 
 me to return to Eastbourne. However, I told 
 them how bad things had been there, and they 
 sent me with a note to a certain Refuge in the 
 neighbourhood of Hoxton. Here the manager, 
 or whatever he was, refused to take me in, but 
 gave me a ticket for a penny basin of soup. 
 
 I told them I was homeless, but that is all they 
 did for me. At the same time they wrote to 
 friends of mine in Eastbourne, whose names I 
 had given them as references, for subscriptions, 
 pretending that they had "helped" me! 
 
 So I went on to Field Lane. This constitutes 
 a piece of old London situated between Rose- 
 bery Avenue and Saffron Hill. You turn down 
 Vine Street out of the Clerkenwell Road 
 which contains the Holborn Workhouse, and you 
 find what is left of Field Lane at the bottom. 
 Rosebery Avenue, which you may reach by a 
 flight of steps, has cut the rest off. In a corner
 
 FIELD LANE 189 
 
 formed by the junction of Vine Street and Field 
 Lane there is a large block of buildings which 
 contains the Working Men and Women's Refuges, 
 a creche, a large hall used for religious meetings and 
 the offices of the Field Lane Mission an insti- 
 tution founded a great many years ago, partly 
 through the efforts of the Baroness Burdett-Coutts 
 and Charles Dickens. Connected with it was for- 
 merly the noted "Field Lane Ragged School, " but 
 that has ceased to exist. 
 
 I applied here for shelter and was admitted at 
 once. To be taken in, if there are any vacancies, 
 a man must have two qualifications: he must be 
 decently dressed and have references, and he is 
 given food and shelter for a month unless he ob- 
 tains employment before. I cannot speak too 
 highly of this institution or of its secretary, Mr. 
 Pratt (I think that was his name), who was most 
 kind and considerate to all the inmates. Of 
 course one did not get, or expect, the luxuries 
 or comforts one would expect at a hotel, but 
 there were good warm beds and plenty of food 
 some consideration to one who had been 
 watching for daylight on the embankments for 
 a night or two, with an empty stomach and no 
 prospect of breakfast. 
 
 Having been admitted and enjoyed a good 
 warm bath, I was given a large cup of cocoa, a 
 plate of cold meat and some bread. The beds 
 are arranged in two dormitories, one above the
 
 190 GEORGE MEEK 
 
 other, the lower one being used in the daytime 
 as a refectory, the beds being folded back neatly 
 against the walls. In the morning all the in- 
 mates assist in cleaning and dusting various 
 parts of the building. Then there is breakfast, 
 a large mug of cocoa with a pound of bread, 
 after that a short service in a large room (con- 
 ducted by the secretary), and the men are allowed 
 to go where they choose in search of employ- 
 ment until five P.M. There is a good dinner at 
 noon for those who care to return for it. At tea 
 time a pint of good tea and another pound of 
 bread. The inmates supplement their bread 
 with meat saved from dinner which is plentiful 
 or, if they can afford it, with butter or mar- 
 garine they buy themselves. I believe I am right 
 in adding that when there is any left the cook 
 distributes cold meat at breakfast and tea. Ex- 
 cept that they are not supposed to enter a pub- 
 lic-house when they are out, or to use bad language 
 on the premises, the inmates are not interfered 
 with. They are allowed to smoke in the yards, 
 if they can procure the means, and if they can 
 see their way to earning a few shillings, or have 
 appointments with respect to employment out 
 of their hours of liberty, they are allowed to 
 go out, being "let off" their duties in the 
 institution. 
 
 Sunday is the busiest day. At the top of the 
 building and covering the whole of it is a very
 
 FIELD LANE 191 
 
 large mission hall. Here the Sunday services 
 are held. To them in the morning come such a 
 crowd of tatterdemalion men and women as one 
 can only see at such a function in a great city; 
 for after the religious service another follows, 
 which is the cause of these poor wretches' attend- 
 ance: each is given a pint of steaming hot cocoa 
 and a pound of bread. These are not the ordi- 
 nary inmates, but the wreckage of society from 
 anywhere, everywhere, hundreds of them wolfing 
 their food as though they have had none before 
 for days. 
 
 The ordinary inmates assist to distribute this, 
 and afterwards clean the whole place out, floors, 
 forms and everything, ready for the Sunday 
 school which assembles there in the afternoon. 
 After dinner, which is always accompanied on 
 Sundays by a large slab of bread-pudding, some 
 are allowed out and others told off to assist in 
 the Sunday school by acting as doorkeepers and 
 distributors of hymn-books. Sometimes enter- 
 tainments are given during the week to which 
 they are admitted and where some very good 
 singing is provided. 
 
 I stayed there four weeks, but could get no 
 employment, except three or four days addressing 
 envelopes at an office in the City Road, kept by 
 an advertising agent. At this place they ad- 
 vertised for a few sandwich-men and men to dis- 
 tribute circulars at eighteen-pence per day. Before
 
 192 GEORGE MEEK 
 
 seven o'clock in the morning the street in front of 
 the office was crowded with hundreds of men wait- 
 ing for the chance of a job even at that price ! And 
 people say the unemployed are idle because they 
 won't work! 
 
 There was every convenience at Field Lane 
 for us to keep ourselves and our clothing clean. 
 When I had nowhere to go after a job I spent 
 a good deal of time in the South Kensington 
 Museum or in the free libraries in the neigh- 
 bourhood of Holborn Town Hall. On my way 
 back in the evening I often saw crowds of 
 "casuals," men and women, huddled round the en- 
 trance to the Holborn Workhouse such rags and 
 awful misery! 
 
 After my month was up I had a night or two 
 in the Rowton House, King's Cross Road the 
 working man's palace. Then I thought I would 
 go to Brighton, and it took me nearly two days 
 to walk there. I slept the intervening night in 
 a cart in an open wayside shed not far from 
 Horley. The next day I returned to Eastbourne 
 in despair. 
 
 I do not know if the Field Lane institution is 
 still in existence, or, if it is, whether or not it is 
 conducted on the same lines. I trust, for the 
 sake of at least a few of the poor devils who 
 find themselves workless and homeless in London, 
 that it is. When I was there it sheltered men 
 of all sorts clerks, mechanics, sailors, trades-
 
 FIELD LANE 198 
 
 men, all, so far as I could see, deserving cases of 
 men who only wanted a lift to get on their legs 
 again. But even in those days this must have 
 been a great many years ago the question of 
 the unemployed was an acutely pressing one, 
 though they had not become so articulate as they 
 have recently. "Society must find a solution to 
 the unemployed problem, or the unemployed 
 may bring about the solution of society. " 
 
 In the meantime the Field Lane Missions have 
 done something, which is more than some more 
 pretentious agencies have.
 
 CHAPTER XXII 
 
 GOING TO THE DEVIL 
 
 WHEN I started in life I was well stocked 
 with ethical ideals of a high order. I have been 
 stripped and left like the man in the Message 
 from Mars, a "beggar and in rags" so far as my 
 own righteousness has been concerned. The 
 irony of fate is most curious. I was fond of fair 
 women, they would have none of me. Dark 
 women haunted me. When I was young I dis- 
 liked beer and despised the drunkard. Some- 
 times now I drink a great deal of beer, though 
 as I grow older I am getting to dislike it again. 
 Then if I did n't think every woman a saint till 
 I was thirty, I did till I was twenty-four this in 
 spite of my early environment, where loose talk 
 was common. Then I turned and despised and 
 abused them. However, during those bohemian 
 years I never wilfully led an innocent girl astray, 
 and if I had got any one of them into trouble 
 I should have married her. I have always longed 
 to be able to earn enough to be able to pay my 
 way honestly. I hardly ever have. "Owe no 
 
 194
 
 GOING TO THE DEVIL 195 
 
 man anything, except to love one another" is an 
 injunction I would gladly obey if I could. Yet 
 my nature is so complex that "Take no thought 
 for the morrow" is an order I obey readily. In- 
 deed, I find I have to. If I plan and take care 
 everything goes wrong. When I have a number 
 of orders booked it is bound to rain. Once I had 
 orders to the amount of eight-and-six for the fol- 
 lowing day, and I needed the money badly. It 
 poured in torrents, and I only managed to get 
 eighteen-pence of it. If I make up my mind to 
 do a thing it is hardly ever done. If I determine 
 not to do anything it usually happens. I did not 
 mean to write this story, or, writing it, meant 
 to suppress a great many things. But fate, in 
 the form of Mr. H. G. Wells, has proved too much 
 for me. 
 
 I have spoken of "Escollopes, " who at the time 
 I first met him lived with a loose woman. He, 
 too, was always about with other women. At 
 last his paramour left him, and he married a 
 young girl who, like himself, was half balmy. 
 It was discovered that he had a wife living, and 
 he was sentenced to nine months' hard labour 
 for bigamy. He was a bathchair-man, and used 
 to send the poor girl he had married out on the 
 streets. He was so utterly lost to all sense of 
 decency that he bragged of what she earned 
 there. 
 
 A third beauty was a married man having
 
 196 GEORGE MEEK 
 
 several children. He had failed in business as 
 a baker near London. If he could possibly be 
 worse that the other two, he was. He is dead. 
 
 About this time an old man, the very image 
 of Sir John Falstaff, came to our town. He 
 had money, and bought several chairs, which 
 he let out. After I was married and had given 
 up the company of these men, "Weak Chest" 
 and "Escollopes" went to lodge with this old 
 man and drew chairs for him. This was after 
 Escollopes' release from prison. They had the 
 amazing impudence to advertise for house- 
 keepers in the West Sussex Gazette, although 
 they had only one room between them. Several 
 girls replied. At last one, the daughter of a 
 warder in the county gaol at Lewes, came to in- 
 vestigate. Information was given to the police, 
 they were ordered out of the town, and their 
 licences were cancelled. They have spent most 
 of their time since tramping in the summer 
 and "resting" in the workhouse during the 
 winter. The last time I saw "Weak Chest" he 
 was suffering from some sort of mental decay. 
 He cherished the most absurd hallucinations 
 about people and things especially horse-racing, 
 to which, with women, he always gave most of his 
 attention. * 
 
 1 Since writing the above I hear this man has been sent to 
 a lunatic asylum. If such be the case, he makes the eighth 
 Eastbourne chair-man who has lost his reason in my time.
 
 GOING TO THE DEVIL 197 
 
 It was through this man I got to know most 
 of the girls I did during my three or four years 
 or so of "fast" life. We seldom associated with 
 the mercenary Venus. I always despised her 
 and always shall, because I believe the sentimental 
 nonsense talked about her is mere nonsense. 
 Few women are really driven to the streets by eco- 
 nomic reasons. A clean-natured girl, if she gives 
 way to her instincts, will not sell her body for 
 money; she would rather "work her fingers to the 
 bone," or, if she can get no work, go to the "house." 
 Only calculating evil-minded women take to the 
 streets. There may be exceptions, of course; that 
 is the rule. I knew one fairly decent woman who 
 was driven out by a lazy, brutal husband. But a 
 poor girl I used to know, a dainty, refined, re- 
 ligious girl, did the wise thing. A soldier whom 
 she had unfortunately met and married wanted to 
 send her out on the streets in Dublin. She went 
 either to the police or a clergyman, and her fare 
 was paid home. She died shortly afterwards of 
 consumption. That, when a woman has fallen 
 and her shame is open so that she is despised 
 by every one, she should retort by becoming 
 heartless and utterly evil is natural. My con- 
 tention is that the average prostitute sins from 
 deliberate choice and as a thief robs for gain. 
 I know she cannot help herself. It is her nature, 
 but her nature is evil. She is own sister to the 
 woman who makes a mercenary marriage.
 
 198 GEORGE MEEK 
 
 Though when I was young I disliked drink of 
 any kind, somewhere, somehow, I acquired a 
 taste for it. 
 
 When I first began as a bathchair-man I 
 used to patronize a coffee-stall near the Wish 
 Tower, but I found in time that the food and 
 drink supplied there was unsatisfactory and too 
 expensive, consisting as it did of cheap cakes 
 and pastry. Whereas it cost me fourpence or 
 fivepence for a mid-day meal there, and then I 
 was not satisfied, I could go to the Devonshire 
 Park bar and get a fairly good meal of stout 
 and bread-and-cheese for twopence-halfpenny. 
 Unfortunately, the cheese often proved thirst- 
 provoking. Some years ago one could get good 
 tea and coffee at the Park, but so far as the 
 outside bars are concerned their sale has been 
 discontinued. 
 
 Before I was married I drank occasionally, 
 but not systematically. Afterwards the habit 
 grew on me till I got so low that I was fast be- 
 coming a confirmed inebriate. I would do almost 
 anything to get drink. I have given up drinking 
 spirits and spending my nights at the public- 
 house ; possibly I shall some day give up drinking 
 beer. I take it sometimes as a brain-stimulant, 
 at others to get rest. When I was young a great 
 many people, including Ruth and her mother, 
 used to try to persuade me to take stout on 
 account of my health, but I refused to take it
 
 GOING TO THE DEVIL 199 
 
 regularly. I did not like it, and only one glass 
 would make me feel tired. 
 
 It has made me do and say a great many foolish 
 and wicked things. It has lost me some friends; 
 it has made a great deal of the unhappiness of 
 my home life. It has aggravated my poverty. 
 Yet- 
 One stands for days worrying with insufficient 
 food, then a shilling or two comes along. And 
 if they sold good food and tea and coffee in 
 public-houses, as well as thirst-producing food 
 and beer, one could eat more and have a cup of 
 tea. Then some of the houses in which we 
 have lived have been so overrun with fleas and 
 other pests that sleep was impossible without a 
 deep drink. I have only met two or three really 
 decent men as publicans. I do not wish to make 
 myself out as being any better or any worse than 
 I really am. But honestly I often wish I could 
 become a teetotaller not out of any prudish 
 consideration, but because I am sure it would 
 be better for me and mine. Some days I drink 
 very little. I have no desire for it. Often I 
 have started the day with the fixed determination 
 not to have any drink at all, but something or 
 some fool has come along and upset me, and I 
 have ended by drinking a great deal. Times 
 of public excitement, too, are dangerous to me. 
 I am extremely sensitive to telepathic influences 
 both from a distance and from my immediate
 
 200 GEORGE MEEK 
 
 environment. When there is a great deal of 
 drinking going on, such as at holiday times, or 
 as when the South African War was on, I find 
 myself strongly seized by the craving. Perhaps 
 before this is published I shall have broken 
 away from the habit altogether, though, as I 
 say, it is useless for me to determine to do any- 
 thing, because it is seldom or never done if 
 I do. 
 
 But since my illness last autumn, which my 
 doctor told me was partly caused by the impure 
 beers I had been drinking, I find I cannot stand 
 so much as I used to. I suppose, in view of 
 Mr. Lloyd George's Budget, the brewers are 
 using even more chemicals than usual. 
 
 When I was young I used to take considerable 
 pride in my appearance. I earned more money 
 and could get better clothes. I always wore 
 cuffs as well as a collar and tie in the evening 
 and on Sundays, kid gloves. 
 
 But the years have sweated all that out of me. 
 Not only is it difficult, sometimes well-nigh im- 
 possible, for one to keep oneself in decent boots 
 and clothing at our uncertain work, but when we 
 do get a few decent things the demands of land- 
 lord or chair-owner make their consignment to 
 the pawnshop inevitable. Many a time we have 
 stripped the clothes off our backs and put away 
 our bed for rent. 
 
 So one gets low and shabby and disheartened.
 
 GOING TO THE DEVIL 201 
 
 In a snobbish town like Eastbourne dress means 
 so much. With little chance of a healthy night's 
 sleep owing to the insect pests, little decent food, 
 many unoccupied hours, much worry and often 
 many disappointments during the day, it is no 
 wonder one is driven to the abuse of alcohol. 
 
 Of course, it is foolish and degrading, and, 
 like all unhealthy practices, it breeds its own 
 punishment : nature takes care of that. But 
 these unhealthy and unnatural habits are bred 
 in us because we live in an unhealthy and un- 
 natural society. On the other hand, nearly all 
 the great fighting nations have been hard-drink- 
 ing nations : we are engaged in one of the hardest, 
 if not the hardest, compaigns of all time, and this 
 war will not be to the battalions of plaster saints.
 
 CHAPTER XXIII 
 
 HOME AND MARRIED LIFE 
 
 I DESCRIBED Kate as a "petite dark girl." She 
 was a winsome little girl, bright, affectionate and 
 vivacious. Our life has been a trying one; but 
 she is just a girl still, though she has borne me 
 two children and is nearly forty. 
 
 I had only a few decent lodgings before I was 
 married. When I got any really comfortable 
 ones I usually had to leave them for some reason 
 or other, from no fault of mine. It has been the 
 same with our homes since. 
 
 The last lodgings I had when I was single 
 were the most comfortable. They were clean 
 and central, and I did precisely as I liked. I 
 had a small bed-sitting room on the ground-floor, 
 where I could have any friend I chose to see me. 
 Here we lived for some time after we were married. 
 We had a lot of young friends who used to visit 
 us. Then we furnished rooms in a house where 
 Kate worked as an ironer, and her mother came 
 to live with us. She was a sharp, active old 
 lady, a regular attendant at a mission-hall on 
 
 202
 
 Sundays. She soon obtained employment, and 
 between us, for a few years, we managed fairly 
 well. Then my boy was born on Queen Victoria's 
 birthday, 1898. We had been married about three 
 years. 
 
 The description of the baby in The Blue Lagoon 
 reminded me forcibly of him. He was very 
 ugly at first. The doctor had some trouble 
 to get him to cry. Then when he was held up 
 for us to see him he looked round from side to 
 side with queer curiosity. After a week or two 
 he became very beautiful; he had bright golden 
 hair and deep blue eyes. But he was weakly, 
 and he had to have artificial food. He was sub- 
 ject to convulsions. I sat up with him for nearly 
 a fortnight with a bath of hot water with, I be- 
 lieve, mustard and vinegar in it, to put him in 
 on a fit appearing. The doctor pulled him through 
 for a time, however. Then we had to have 
 another medical man, because our own left the 
 town, and the child grew worse, dying in his 
 grandmother's arms on September I. 
 
 My daughter was born on February 2, 1901, 
 during a snowstorm. Her mother was able to 
 nurse her, and though she is slight she is thriving, 
 a very sharp, cheerful child. She takes after her 
 mother. 
 
 I have nursed my wife through two illnesses. 
 The last was the worst. She came home one day 
 complaining of pains in her side. I got her to
 
 204 GEORGE MEEK 
 
 bed and fetched a doctor. He said she was suf- 
 fering from pneumonia. For the next fortnight 
 I watched her night and day. She gradually 
 grew thinner and thinner, till nothing was left 
 of her but skin and bones. Then she was taken 
 to the hospital for her lung to be drained. Here 
 she lay a month, coming out convalescent, 
 and by the kindness of some friends was sent 
 to a convalescent home away at Folkestone, 
 and when she came back she looked ten years 
 younger. 
 
 Milly, my little girl, was just over three months 
 old when her grandmother met with an accident 
 from the effects of which she died. She had 
 always been a great help to us, and we missed 
 her sadly. About this time we had an Aberdeen 
 terrier, the one the Hon. W. B. Hanbury gave 
 me. He was very fond of the old lady, prin- 
 cipally, I suspect, because she brought him food 
 from the hotel where she worked. He used to 
 go up the road to meet her regularly every night 
 at 7.30 her time for coming home. When he 
 met her he would dance round her, yelping, in 
 his funny way, with delight, so that we always 
 knew when she was coming. After the accident 
 he asked to be let out at 7.15 every night till 
 we moved to another house. Here his favourite 
 resting-place was on the staircase, where an old 
 dress of hers was hanging. It was the one she 
 was wearing at the time of her accident, and had
 
 HOME AND MARRIED LIFE 205 
 
 blood stains on it which we could not, or did not, 
 remove. 
 
 I never see a quaint Aberdeen, with its funny 
 waddle and curious black face, without thinking 
 of poor "Whiskey"; he was my constant com- 
 panion for many years. I had other dogs. There 
 was "Becky," a retriever puppy I was very fond 
 of. She was an unreliable little rip with a will 
 of her own, and we had to part. Then I had 
 a half-breed retriever who would fetch and carry 
 anything pretty well. Whiskey and Becky were 
 both afraid of the water; this dog I called him 
 ' ' Dooley "and his brother ' ' Peter Jackson ' ' they 
 both came to a bad end followed me into the 
 water and tried to drag me out when I went bath- 
 ing. If I live to own another dog I'll try to get 
 another Aberdeen. They have their faults, but 
 they are at least faithful and affectionate. They 
 are very intelligent and sensitive. All good dogs 
 are sensitive. Whiskey used to cry at a cross 
 word, as also did Horace Stretton's brown spaniel. 
 Dogs, cats, horses every teachable animal can 
 be understood and will understand if we have 
 patience and kindliness enough with them. I and 
 Whiskey were more like comrades who quite 
 understood each other than master and dog. In- 
 deed, there was no question of mastery after the 
 first few weeks of teaching, it was purely one of 
 friendship. 
 
 I am extremely fond of animals and most
 
 206 GEORGE MEEK 
 
 living things trees and flowers, insects (except 
 fleas!), birds and cats. There is an old Tom in 
 our street with whom I have been on speaking 
 terms for some time. I used to quarrel years 
 ago with a caged thrush. He was a wicked bird 
 who could sing and peck. We tried once to keep 
 a tame linnet ourselves, but a neighbour's child 
 frightened it to death, and we have never tried 
 another. The sparrows who frequent the corners 
 where we stand with our chairs come and ask 
 us for food when they see us eating. Now and 
 then one will eat out of our hands. 
 
 Kate did not return to work, except for an 
 occasional week, for three years after Milly was 
 born. It was a hard struggle to live with the 
 chair. Now and then I was helped by a week's 
 work at the theatre or I do not know how we 
 should have got through at all. Milly grew 
 a bright, refined little thing under her mother's 
 care. Since she has been to school, however, 
 she has become somewhat wild. Naturally, as 
 the only child, she is petted at home, but we 
 have found great difficulty in getting her cared 
 for while we were at work, as she should be. One 
 woman was cruel to her and half-starved her. 
 That led to the whooping-cough, from which 
 she was saved by a good doctor and emulsion of 
 cod liver oil. Kate had just returned to work. 
 We moved to a house where the landlady took 
 care of her. We paid our rent regularly, and
 
 HOME AND MARRIED LIFE 207 
 
 for her, and left food for her. I doubt if she had 
 much of the food; the woman's husband was 
 almost always out of work. He was a great 
 drunken lout who was always beating his wife: 
 one of the men who "don't care." Although 
 he did me all the harm he possibly could, I saved 
 him from being "sold up" afterwards by telling 
 a broker's man that he hadn't anything worth 
 taking which was n't the truth. The high rents 
 for small houses in Eastbourne make it impos- 
 sible for one to have a home to oneself. Either 
 you must let rooms or take rooms, and you have 
 to chance your luck as to what kind of people 
 you get with. A few of the people we have 
 lodged with have been passable, but we have 
 never had the luck to catch a decent lodger when 
 we have had a house ourselves. 
 
 One winter, when Milly was very young, we 
 had a large room at three shillings per week with 
 some decent, quiet people. They had a daughter 
 at home, a pretty little brown-haired girl of 
 eighteen or so, who used to be good company. 
 She liked to have all the doors open when her 
 parents were out, so that she could hear my some- 
 times equivocal jokes. She was a good girl, just 
 taking a furtive peep at the joy of life. In the 
 spring, to my great regret, we had to leave to 
 enable her parents to let the room furnished. 
 We had to take an old cottage in the very worst 
 slum in Eastbourne, because in the spring un-
 
 208 GEORGE MEEK 
 
 furnished rooms are hard to come by. Here we 
 found the environment absolutely too degraded, 
 and we took two unfurnished rooms with the 
 people I have mentioned above.
 
 CHAPTER XXIV 
 
 THE LOWEST DEPTH 
 
 OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES says somewhere 
 that every man has three personalities, two 
 more or less fictitious and one real: what he 
 appears to others, what he thinks of himself, 
 and what he really is. Furneaux Jordan, in his 
 valuable treatise on Physiology and Character, 
 divides the human temperament broadly into 
 two classes the critical and the emotional 
 which are linked by any number of gradations. 
 Whatever truth there may be in either of these 
 postulates, I personally consider that most char- 
 acters are many-sided, and that they possess 
 some aspects which are developed only under 
 exceptional circumstances. Men change con- 
 siderably with changing conditions. Not all, 
 but most, appear to be all right till they get into 
 the fire of temptation or adversity. Then their 
 equanimity or their probity shrivels up like 
 burnt straw. The Mark Tapleys are few in real 
 life, though now and then one meets a specimen. 
 The censorious whr would n't do this, that or the 
 14 209
 
 210 GEORGE MEEK 
 
 other, and who brag that they have weathered 
 temptation are many; but when one gets to 
 know the truth about them one finds that there 
 has been some counterbalancing circumstance or 
 other which has prevented them from falling. 
 
 I knew a man who had been in constant em- 
 ployment practically all his working life. He 
 helped others less fortunate than himself on 
 occasion, though, like all such people, he imagined 
 that if others were not so fortunate as he was it 
 was their own fault. He was himself unexpectedly 
 thrown out of work, and remained out for some 
 time. Having a large family it soon became a 
 really distressing case. I called the attention of a 
 wealthy gentlemen I knew the late Mr. Melia, a 
 retired tea merchant to it, and he promptly 
 helped with a sovereign. This got to the ears of 
 another man I knew, who had been out of work but 
 was in employment again. He was quite contemp- 
 tuous. "I don't believe in charity," he said, and 
 I found out afterwards that his wife not only 
 had a considerable sum of money by her, but 
 that she worked and kept him when he was doing 
 nothing. 
 
 It is certainly a great mistake, as a rule, to 
 take people upon their own estimate even when 
 they are not wilfully lying. 
 
 These remarks have been induced by a retro- 
 spective mood which I have been in this morn- 
 ing: a mood which is quite naturally induced
 
 THE LOWEST DEPTH 211 
 
 by this work, and I have been trying to weigh 
 my own character, a very difficult job, because 
 it appears of a mercurial nature, and my scales 
 are defective. That I might have been different 
 and acted differently I have no doubt had I 
 possessed different qualities. It is easy to be 
 wise after the event. I am, unfortunately for 
 one thing, of the same stock as poor "Tess's" 
 family, the "Come day, go day, God send Sun- 
 day" people. Very foolish of me, I know, and 
 very unfortunate for me; if I could reshape my 
 disposition so as to ally myself with some more 
 prudent and more fortunate tribe I should be 
 thankful. 
 
 And sometimes God sends a very bad Sunday. 
 
 One year it was when Milly was about three 
 years old I had had a very bad spring. Two 
 or three chairs had been taken away from me 
 because I could not pay the rent regularly: one 
 I had hired through the worst of the winter 
 and was only five shillings in arrears. Then a 
 man named Smith, who has the best chairs in 
 the town, but who, being a Conservative, is 
 down on me as an "agitator," let me have one 
 of his. After a wet week doing nothing, quite 
 by chance I picked up a good job for a fort- 
 night. This enabled me to get some much needed 
 clothing and medicine and nourishment for 
 Milly, who was recovering from whooping- 
 cough.
 
 212 GEORGE MEEK 
 
 At that time we were lodging with the drunken 
 lout I have mentioned in another place. We 
 had paid our rent regularly and helped them all 
 we could, as he was out of work most of the 
 time; but in a drunken fit he had given us notice, 
 and we had taken other lodgings. The party 
 I had been taking out had gone away, and it 
 being at the end of June a very dull time I 
 did the moving myself, as I had no work to go to. 
 
 On the Monday I had a feeling of horrible 
 depression. I am subject to these fits, and they 
 invariably portend some evil. On the Tuesday 
 I did the moving, and was horrified to find all 
 our bedding infested with house bugs, so I had 
 to take it to the destructor, and we slept that 
 night on the floor. The next morning I took 
 Milly to a friend of ours in Leslie Street, as the 
 landlady at the new address refused to look after 
 her on account of her cough. It was unusual 
 for me to take her out so early in the morning. 
 She was delighted, and danced along by my side 
 singing the chorus of "The Holy City," which 
 she had learned through hearing me sing that 
 song. We met the friend I was taking her to 
 an old workmate of my wife's and she took 
 charge of her. I went out with my chair, but 
 got nothing. Just before twelve o'clock another 
 chair-man told me that a county court bailiff had 
 been looking for me for a day or two with a warrant 
 for my arrest.
 
 THE LOWEST DEPTH 213 
 
 I knew there was a judgment against me on 
 the suit of a firm of "tallymen." This firm has 
 branches all over the country, and is reputed to 
 have more cases in the various county courts 
 than any other establishment. Their one pre- 
 occupation in politics is the fear lest imprison- 
 ment for "contempt of court" (as it is called) 
 should be by law abolished. 
 
 Knowing I was two months in arrears in my 
 payments into court, I put my chair away and 
 went towards home with the intention of selling 
 some furniture ; but on the way I met the bailiff, 
 who arrested me. I told him what I intended 
 doing, but he said the warrant had been issued 
 not only for the two instalments overdue, but for 
 the full amount of the debt. 
 
 The laws relating to debtor and creditor in 
 England form one of the most glaring instances 
 of class legislation. Those who are compara- 
 tively well-to-do or who can command large sums 
 and large credits may contract any amount of 
 debt, which if they have enough ready money 
 to pay the preliminary fees involved in becom- 
 ing bankrupt they can shuffle off without any 
 great personal inconvenience. I have met num- 
 bers of men who have "broke," some of them 
 for thousands. They did n't seem much the 
 worse for it, many of them, and in many in- 
 stances started in business again and became 
 as big as ever. To say nothing of the notorious
 
 214 GEORGE MEEK 
 
 bankrupts of the Hooley and "Jubilee Plunger" 
 classes. But if a poor man gets into debt he 
 must pay or go to prison. 
 
 Again. If a man owes less than fifty pounds 
 he cannot become bankrupt. He may obtain 
 an administration order, under which he will 
 have to pay twenty-five per cent, or fifty per cent. 
 or the whole of what he owes by monthly instal- 
 ments; if he fails to do so he is liable to be im- 
 prisoned for twenty-eight or forty days. If he 
 owes more than fifty pounds and can raise enough 
 money to pay the necessary fees he can become 
 a bankrupt, perhaps pay nothing, and, unless 
 he is fraudulent, is not sent to gaol 
 
 "One law for the rich, another for the poor 
 O, what a happy land is England!" 
 
 The bailiff took me to the Gildredge, where he 
 treated me to a drink or two. He paid for drinks 
 for me there and more at Lewes. I was very 
 glad of them. Besides having a thirst induced 
 by eating salt fish for breakfast, my position 
 made alcohol acceptable. These he paid for out 
 of my "conduct money." Had I chosen I could 
 have demanded a cab at Lewes station. I pre- 
 ferred the beer. He also gave me a letter-card, 
 which I posted to my wife telling her what had 
 happened and where Milly was. This did not 
 reach her until the following day, and she passed 
 a terrible night of anxiety.
 
 THE LOWEST DEPTH 215 
 
 Arrived at Lewes we went up that via dolorosa 
 School Hill, calling at a fried fish shop and the 
 White Hart for refreshments. Arrived at the 
 prison which I had passed many times before, 
 devoutly hoping I might never see the inside of 
 it I was handed over to the receiving warder. 
 
 A shiver ran through me as the outer gate 
 was shut and locked behind me. The bailiff 
 conducted me across a paved court up some 
 steps to a large glazed door. This was unlocked 
 by a warder standing inside, who relocked it 
 after our admission. We entered a large corridor 
 with doors opening on either side of it, through 
 one of which we passed into the receiving office, 
 where I was handed over to the prison authorities 
 as represented by another warder. There were 
 about half-a-dozen wretched-looking men sitting 
 in this place on forms against the walls. I gath- 
 ered that they had all been committed from 
 Brighton for petty offences. One of them was 
 a very old man of the tramp variety, who had a 
 large flag basket on a string. 
 
 We were told to take off our boots, and were 
 weighed and measured. Then we were taken 
 through corridors and down various flights of 
 stairs to another warder, who was seated at a 
 table in a dark passage. One by one we had 
 to pass into the bath-room, where we had to 
 strip and, I think, put our clothes outside. I 
 was not allowed to keep my own clothes, which
 
 216 GEORGE MEEK 
 
 was rather annoying, as I had carefully con- 
 cealed most of the tobacco I had about them, 
 all except a small piece, which I put in my mouth. 
 I don't know whether water was scarce at 
 Lewes that year, or whether they were afraid 
 we should commit suicide by drowning ourselves 
 in it if they gave us enough; but I had only 
 about six inches of it, and that very dirty, in 
 which to bathe. When I got outside, the warder, 
 who was urbane, not to say genial, told me to 
 spit the tobacco out of my mouth. I was then 
 shut into a large tile-paved cell opposite the 
 bath-room, where after a time a bundle was 
 thrown in to me. This contained a blue jacket 
 and a pair of trousers, an old "glengarry" cap, 
 a coarse shirt, two low shoes (odd ones), with 
 broken pieces of lace in them, a wooden spoon 
 and a towel all marked with a broad arrow. 
 After a time they brought my supper, skilly and 
 coarse brown bread. After a restless night, feel- 
 ing horribly miserable, then breakfast, the same 
 as supper. After that the doctor a genial 
 official who joked. "Anything the matter with 
 you?" he asked. "No," I said. "What's the 
 matter with your eyes?" he asked. "They've 
 always been like that," I replied. Doctors 
 always want to look at my eyes, and I know 
 it's no use. "Anything else?" he asked. "Only 
 being in here," I said. "Oh!" he answered, 
 "you '11 soon get over that."
 
 THE LOWEST DEPTH 217 
 
 Then I was taken up to the governor's office. 
 This is situated in the central block of the prison. 
 Outside it corridors lit by skylights and occa- 
 sional windows at the side, with long rows of 
 doors in between, seemed to branch off in every 
 direction, intersected and crossed and recrossed 
 by iron stairways, bridges and balconies. Stone 
 and iron or steel in every direction. I had to 
 cross complicated bridges and ascend and de- 
 scend various stairways. I was left at a door 
 opening on the central hall, where the governor's 
 office is situated, by the warder who had con- 
 ducted me there. Being a stranger to the place 
 and after the dark cell and passages dazzled with 
 the light, I did not know which way to go. A 
 group of warders stood on the floor below. 
 "Come on! this way!" one of them shouted in 
 a brutal voice. Of course I took the wrong 
 turning. "Now then, where are you going to?" 
 he shouted again. "We'll soon make you look 
 lively now we Ve got you here. " 
 
 I got to the floor at last, and was ordered to 
 put my bundle (containing towel, etc.) on the 
 floor and stand with my face to the wall. There 
 were others, and we had to stand about two feet 
 apart from each other. After waiting what 
 seemed to me to be an inordinately long time 
 I was taken before the governor, a little short man 
 in a cycling suit, who sat behind a large writing- 
 table. He read the committal order to me.
 
 218 GEORGE MEEK 
 
 Then the chief warder, a big pompous man, 
 questioned me as to my name and so on. When 
 he came to "What religion?" I replied, "Ag- 
 nostic, " as I had the night before to the warder 
 in the dark passage down below. 
 
 " What ? " puffed the chief warder. 
 
 "Agnostic, " I replied. 
 
 " 'E dunno what 'e means, , sir, " he remarked 
 to the governor. I don't know what the latter 
 entered in the prison register as my religion. 
 After my examination by the governor some one 
 behind me asked me if I could read. I found 
 afterwards that he was the librarian. 
 
 To my disgust I was placed in charge of the 
 brute who shouted at me when I could not see 
 my way. Nearly all the warders were pigs, 
 but this was the worst of the lot. We were all 
 glad when at the end of the week he went on 
 night duty, and we had a little better kind of a 
 swine during the day. 
 
 He conducted me down one of the corridors 
 and across a yard to one of the outer wings of 
 the prison, which has from time immemorial 
 been devoted to debtors and people committed 
 for non-payment in civil cases such as passive 
 registers. I was given a yellow badge marked 
 
 I, 12 being the number of my cell in the 
 D section which I had to fasten on a button
 
 THE LOWEST DEPTH 219 
 
 on my jacket. I was locked into a smaller, 
 narrower cell paved like the other with tiles. 
 This contained, to the left of the grated and 
 frosted window, a wooden plank bed, to the 
 right a cocoa-nut fibre mattress and pillow with 
 blankets, sheets and counterpane standing under 
 a small shelf upon which were devotional books 
 and a slate and pencil. Between these and the 
 door were various tin utensils, which had to be 
 placed in a certain precise order against the 
 wall: a small wooden stool and, just inside the 
 door, a small table over which was a small gas 
 bracket and a bell-pull, neither of which I had 
 occasion to use. 
 
 After dinner I was given cocoa-nut fibre to 
 pick. This was my usual occupation, and in 
 spite of the warder's sneers and threats I picked 
 as little as possible. I argued that I had been 
 sent to this institution, which was maintained 
 mainly in the interests of the exploiting class, by 
 one of its members, and I would see them farther 
 before I would do more than I was obliged to. 
 
 On week days we had to be up at six, empty 
 our slops, brush out our cells, burnish our tin- 
 ware with soap and brick-dust till they looked 
 like silver, roll up our bedding the sheets, 
 blankets, etc., had to be folded just so in one 
 precise way. At seven we had breakfast a pint 
 of tea and a lump of brown bread, then exercise 
 in one of the yards. Here we were allowed to
 
 220 GEORGE MEEK 
 
 converse. I found another man from Eastbourne 
 there under an administration order, a grandson 
 of the old John Vine I used to meet at the Liberal 
 Club. A laundryman was there for non-pay- 
 ment under an affiliation order from Hastings, and 
 several from the same place for rate default. 
 There was also a well-dressed man from 
 Brighton, whose friends "bought him out" be- 
 fore the expiration of his term; he was the only 
 one of us who had retained his private clothes. 
 We exercised twice a day, a welcome break to 
 the monotony of solitary confinement. The 
 yards in which we walked and chatted contained 
 flower borders full of roses in bloom. 
 
 After exercise came chapel. We sat in two 
 rows quite at the back, with one or two "second 
 division" prisoners near us. They were dressed 
 in chocolate-coloured uniforms, the ordinary 
 prisoners in khaki. There were some who wore 
 knickers instead of trousers, whom I understood 
 to be long term convicts. I saw one white- 
 headed man, who reminded me of "Navvy," the 
 old chair-man, and I pitied him very much. The 
 ordinary prisoners filed into chapel in batches 
 from different doors to ours, and I could not help 
 remarking how ghastly white many of their faces 
 were. I did not see any women; there was a 
 gallery over our heads where I supposed them 
 to be. Along each wall, at the end of each third 
 or fourth row, was a kind of rostrum in which
 
 THE LOWEST DEPTH 221 
 
 the warders sat so that they could overlook the 
 prisoners. 
 
 I had not attended church or chapel for a good 
 many years, and I looked upon these services 
 with contempt, considering them a bitter mock- 
 ery both of the alleged God in whose honour 
 they were supposed to be held and the people 
 who were compelled to attend them. In my 
 mind I jeered at and despised the class which 
 had instituted them and the creature they paid 
 to conduct them. He came in and went out 
 locking and unlocking the door after him like 
 any other warder; for I considered him as being 
 nothing but a superior sort of warder who paraded 
 in a white surplice instead of a blue uniform. 
 
 After chapel we were marched back to our 
 section and locked into our cells till dinner time, 
 the morning being broken by the governor's in- 
 spection. This function also aroused my secret 
 derision. A warder came first, unlocking and 
 opening the cell doors. Then the governor 
 marched by, a little man in a dark-grey knicker- 
 bocker suit, between the pompous chief and 
 another warder, all three employing the goose 
 step and presenting a spectacle that would bring 
 the house down if it were repeated on the stage. 
 While they passed we had to stand at attention 
 at the back of our cells. 
 
 Then came dinner at twelve. There was 
 always the brown bread and half washed potatoes
 
 222 GEORGE MEEK 
 
 in their skins. The other constituents were 
 varied, consisting either of suet pudding, a piece 
 of boiled meat, "bully beef," or a very small 
 piece of bacon all fat with haricot beans. In 
 the afternoon exercise again, and work till tea 
 time, when we had a pint of cocoa and more 
 brown bread. A warder visited us at about 
 seven, and told us to put our work outside, after 
 which we were free to go to bed. 
 
 Twice a week the librarian, accompanied by 
 a prisoner, changed our books. Prisoners, ac- 
 companied by a warder, brought us our meals. 
 Most of them had grown semi-circular beards. 
 I was beginning to show signs of one myself 
 when I was released. These men would say a 
 word or two: "Cheer up!" "It won't be long!" 
 or some similar phrase, if they could do so with- 
 out attracting attention. 
 
 On Sundays we had longer services, more 
 exercise and no work. The Catholics and 
 Protestants held separate services in the same 
 chapel. Sometimes at the former we could hear 
 some very fine singing. 
 
 Some of the other debtors had work to do for 
 which they were paid, white- washing, mail- 
 bag making and so on, and once or twice we 
 were marched up to clean and dust the chapel. 
 This made a change, and the warder in charge 
 of us there chatted affably, told us stories and 
 did not drive us.
 
 THE LOWEST DEPTH 223 
 
 I found the confinement, the monotony and 
 the want of tobacco the hardest to bear. At 
 first I counted the days, then the hours, to the 
 date of my release. I was allowed to write one 
 letter, which I sent to a friend of mine in East- 
 bourne, asking him to see if he could raise a 
 collection amongst the chair-men and others to 
 help my wife during my imprisonment, giving 
 him a message to Smith the chair-owner. 
 
 I received his reply the morning of my release. 
 He told me he had collected only one shilling, 
 and that the chair-owner said I could n't have 
 the chair again. Directly a man becomes an 
 exploiter, even if it is in only a little tin-pot way, 
 he ranges himself on the side of the predatory 
 class. 
 
 It was good to get out into the fresh morning 
 air and to have a smoke. There were several 
 prisoners released at the same time. One of 
 them, who had done a month as a "drunk and 
 disorderly," wanted a clay pipe and some 
 matches. I had no light, so he took me into a 
 public-house, where he treated me to some beer 
 and tobacco. Good luck to him! I had n't a 
 penny. If ever I go again and one never knows 
 one's luck I shall insist on having either the 
 cab or some of the "conduct money" to spend 
 when I come out. The agent of the Discharged 
 Prisoners Aid Society met us at the station, but 
 he would pay my fare only as far as Polegate.
 
 224 GEORGE MEEK 
 
 When I got out at Polegate I had about four 
 miles to walk into Eastbourne wondering what 
 was going to happen next. I remember think- 
 ing that everything was "on the knees of the 
 gods." 
 
 I found that the man at the house where we 
 had taken rooms had threatened to turn my wife 
 out when she came home from work the day I 
 was put away. He had no excuse and no legal 
 right for doing so, but she got a friend to let 
 her have a furnished room. She found out where 
 Milly was after some trouble. When I reached 
 the house where she was staying it was on a 
 Tuesday and she had not gone to work Milly 
 came running to me, crying out, "Oh, daddy! my 
 daddy!" the tears running down her face. We 
 have always been great friends, I and Milly, 
 though we fall out sometimes, as most friends do. 
 Kate had sold most of the furniture while I was 
 away. The people who took her in made her pay 
 pretty dearly for her accommodation. 
 
 We lodged with them for some time. The 
 house was horribly verminous. The people 
 earned good money, but never had anything for 
 their use. They had "commandeered" all our 
 odds and ends of jugs and basins, saucepans 
 and crockery, and everything else they could lay 
 their hands on. I failed to get another chair 
 for some weeks, and had a pretty rough time of 
 it, though, as it was a very slack season, I did
 
 THE LOWEST DEPTH 225 
 
 not lose much. Early in August I got a shabby 
 old three-wheeler with which I had little success, 
 but I managed to keep it on for nine or ten months. 
 The man to whom Smith let the chair I had before 
 I was arrested had it about a month, paying no 
 rent. 
 
 There was one advantage in being in prison. 
 There was no rent collector to worry one on 
 Mondays. And then I had more substantial 
 and more regular meals than I usually did at 
 home. Eating, sleeping and reading helped to 
 pass the time and break the monotony.
 
 CHAPTER XXV 
 
 SOME MORE OF OUR HOMES AND A FEW OF 
 OUR LODGERS 
 
 THE first lot of furniture we got together we 
 kept for about four years. Then I voluntarily 
 surrendered the greater part of it to a landlord 
 to whom I owed some rent. It was not sold 
 for a long while afterwards, and no account 
 was ever rendered to me of what it fetched. I 
 heard, casually, that it realized far more than I 
 owed. It was made up mainly of things bought 
 on the hire purchase system. An extremely 
 slack time following upon the declaration of 
 war in South Africa induced me to let it go. I 
 had earned nothing for twelve days. The chair- 
 owner I was drawing for at the time was press- 
 ing me, and though my wife and her mother 
 were working, their combined earnings hardly 
 found us in necessaries. Our rent was ten 
 shillings a week. We moved into a furnished 
 room for which we paid four shillings, and Kate's 
 mother went to live at the place where she was 
 employed. 
 
 226
 
 SOME OF OUR HOMES 227 
 
 Earlier we had a nice flat over a shop, where 
 we let off one room and so managed very well. 
 A new manager was appointed in the shop, and 
 as he wanted our flat we had to go, though we 
 paid our rent regularly. Here I collected my 
 best library during a fairly good summer, but 
 it had to go in the winter for food. I have 
 never been able to keep anything saleable or 
 pawnable we could do without. But we had 
 some fun there. Many people visited us, and 
 we had musical evenings. There was a rare 
 Christmas party at which we had about a dozen 
 friends. I played the mandoline, violin and 
 flute a very little just well enough to knock 
 tunes out of them, but I could never keep an 
 instrument long enough to learn it properly. 
 The pawnshop invariably claimed it sooner or 
 later. I was always fond of singing. I and 
 my wife Kate had the same taste in songs. We 
 preferred ballads, old and new. She was once 
 selected for special praise by Princess Christian 
 when she was singing at a concert at Windsor. 
 For my part, my voice had always been un- 
 reliable. Sometimes I have moved an audience 
 to wonder; people have exclaimed that they 
 did n t think I "had it in me." At another time 
 I cannot sing a note. 
 
 One or two of my friends are professional 
 singers. Of course, I cannot begin to sing so 
 well as they, but I have heard plenty of people
 
 228 GEORGE MEEK 
 
 on the stage singing far worse than I do when 
 I am in "form." About this time we knew 
 some very nice people whom we used to visit. 
 They were a kind of hybrid between work- and 
 trades-people very select in their way, but fond 
 of a little fun. We usually spent our Sun- 
 day evenings together, either at their house or 
 our flat. They had a large place in "Colon- 
 nade Gardens, " where they let lodgings. One 
 of their boarders was a cockney girl who, 
 when it came to her turn to sing, used to give 
 us 
 
 "Aw we to pawt like this, Bill, 
 Aw we to pawt this wye?" 
 
 There was a piano at their house which no 
 one of us could play, but my mandoline and a 
 banjo were requisitioned. They were all Irenes, 
 Ethels and Mauds. Even the raucous cockney 
 was "Irene." There was a fair elder sister 
 named commonplace "Kate," with whom I fell 
 in love, but when I smelt her breath I thought 
 it far too drastic. 
 
 I suppose my readers will know that even 
 married men are liable to fall in love sometimes 
 with other women than their own wives. It is 
 a stupid trick, and really only a compliment to 
 the other women; only, when one is not allowed 
 by fate to have the one woman in whom one 
 can bury oneself for the rest of one's days,
 
 SOME OF OUR HOMES 229 
 
 these declensions, nearly always harmless and 
 evanescent as they are, are excusable. 
 
 After we left this flat we took a small tenement 
 over some stables, which was sub-let to us by a 
 madwoman. Here my son Jocelyn was born. 
 We paid our way, but left because we could n't 
 stand the landlady, who was more often drunk 
 than sober, and, besides, the rooms swarmed 
 with beetles. Then we tried two or three houses 
 in which we had no luck at letting. The last 
 of these I have described in one of my short 
 stories. It swarmed with all sorts of pests, in- 
 cluding rats, which we could hear pattering up 
 and down the stairs as we lay in bed at night, 
 trying to get into our room. Even "Becky," 
 the dog who was with us then, did not keep them 
 away. One night I left half-a-pound of steak 
 on a plate on top of the cupboard for Kate to take 
 for her dinner the next day. In the morning it 
 was gone: the rats had eaten it. It was out of 
 the puppy's reach. 
 
 I stood this horrible ramshackle place as long as 
 I could. Afterwards I called the attention of the 
 Sanitary Committee to the state of it and the 
 row in which it stood. But the Town Clerk wrote 
 and said that the Town Council saw no reason 
 for interfering. This is a "health" resort. The 
 public health authority, which is responsible 
 for its good government, is so obsessed with 
 the fear of touching "private property" that
 
 280 GEORGE MEEK 
 
 it is afraid to interfere with these pestifer- 
 ous slums, though an exceptionally hot summer 
 with a long drought may any year turn them 
 into hotbeds of infection which will spread 
 an epidemic through the place, causing in- 
 calculable loss and suffering to thousands of 
 the inhabitants. It seems to me that most of 
 our own "civic fathers" seek election rather 
 for party purposes than the good of the 
 community. 
 
 We took another set of rooms over a small 
 shop in Junction Road. A girl was in charge 
 of the place who was heavy in the family way by 
 her employer. When her time drew near he 
 closed the shop and got us to take a small house 
 where she could stay with us during her trouble. 
 The man allowed her two pounds a week for her 
 expenses, but she sent the greater part of it 
 home to her mother, who was always worrying 
 her for money. She never fully paid us, though 
 we charged her very little, only eight shillings 
 per week, and Kate stayed at home to nurse her. 
 The child died a short time after its birth from 
 an evil disease. 
 
 I saw my own child Jocelyn in convulsions, 
 and I hope never to live to watch anything so 
 painful again ; his poor little body writhing while 
 we could do so little to relieve him. And I watched 
 him slowly fade and change till his face, from 
 being that of a little angel, became more like
 
 SOME OF OUR HOMES 231 
 
 that of a very, very old man; but his case was 
 nothing to be compared to this poor child's. 
 Its skin peeled off its flesh with its clothes! 
 Think of that, you who live lightly. 
 
 I think that from time to time in this narrative 
 I have given its readers a glimpse of my own 
 weaknesses and follies. I have my share, per- 
 haps more than my share. But I claim that we, 
 who are working for better things in life, 
 although we may have our frailties which are 
 human have no such crimes on our consciences 
 as have some supporters of the old "respectable" 
 order. 
 
 Our next lodger in the house, where I gave 
 the landlord my goods, was a young work- 
 woman who was employed at the same place as 
 Kate. A grey-headed man used to visit her 
 and take her cycling. We naturally thought 
 they were simply an ordinary courting couple, 
 but discovered afterwards that the man was 
 married and had a large family of grown-up 
 children. At last his wife discovered what was 
 going on and our lodger had to fly. She doted 
 on this old man, though she knew perfectly well 
 that he was married; but she would not give 
 him up. It was after she had left us that I gave 
 that home up. 
 
 We remained in furnished rooms for about 
 nine months, and then began to get another 
 home together: the one I lost while in prison.
 
 232 GEORGE MEEK 
 
 After I came back we lived in a furnished room, 
 where we were literally eaten alive with house- 
 bugs and fleas; the bugs used to drop upon 
 our faces as we lay in bed. Then we got our 
 third home together. We have this still. After 
 trying unfurnished rooms with people who, 
 although we paid them regularly, gave us notice 
 in the spring when unfurnished rooms were diffi- 
 cult to get, we took a pleasant little four-roomed 
 flat, for which we paid seven shillings per week. 
 We have a fair-sized, pleasant bedroom with a 
 grass-green Morris wall-paper, very restful to 
 the eyes, a little sitting-room and kitchen, and 
 we sub-let one room. 
 
 I have been unfortunate with my lodgers, 
 they have nearly always turned out to be bad 
 characters. Of course, I am not a Puritan my- 
 self and have no great right to complain, but 
 certainly some one steady and quiet would be a 
 change. It is true that the neighbourhood in which 
 our flat was situated, though it contains some few 
 respectable but poor families, has a very bad 
 reputation, which it deserves. The houses and 
 flats are mostly paltry but highly-rented. Only 
 those who cannot get accommodation in other 
 streets usually go there to live. Often one can 
 hear fights going on, men and women shouting 
 and screaming, using the most abominable 
 language. This may happen any time during 
 the night. Women of sinister reputation live
 
 SOME OF OUR HOMES 233 
 
 in some of the places, though the authorities 
 have tried to rid the town of them. An effort 
 is being made by some of the house-owners to 
 clear these streets of the bad characters. These 
 places are an illustration of the contention made 
 by Mr. Wells that the people make the slums, 
 for they have not been built long, and had they 
 been properly cared for they might have made 
 passable homes. I understand, however, that a 
 good deal of old timber was used in their con- 
 struction, and the ground, originally marsh- 
 land, was made up with house refuse. Hence 
 the vermin in many of them. Except for the 
 nimble flea, which at times appears to be 
 ubiquitous in our town, our flat was free from 
 pests. 
 
 I long for a quiet home in the country, with 
 birds and trees and flowers. I have to live in 
 the dusty town. I long to work quietly. I 
 have to struggle on in an environment of din 
 and squalor and vice. I desire plenty of work 
 so that I can pay my way and we can provide 
 ourselves with the necessaries of life. I have 
 to waste more than half my days in idleness. I 
 am worried from year's end to year's end. We 
 cannot clothe ourselves decently, nor always get 
 good or enough food. 
 
 Yes, I am discontented. I have a right to be 
 discontented. I should be unworthy of my 
 manhood if I was not. I have preached the
 
 234 GEORGE MEEK 
 
 gospel of discontent to others and I shall preach 
 it all the time I have the strength. I have no 
 patience and little pity for the slave who loves 
 his chains.
 
 CHAPTER XXVI 
 
 THE PLEASURES OF LIFE 
 
 APART from my books, my work for the Social- 
 ist movement, and my attempts at literature of 
 late years, my recreations have been necessarily 
 limited by my occupation. Holidays and change 
 have been practically unknown. Except for the 
 fourteen days I spent in prison I was out of 
 Eastbourne only one half day during twelve 
 years ! 
 
 After having been employed behind the scenes 
 a long while, the theatre would not appeal to 
 me even if I could afford to go to it, except when 
 D'Oyly Carte or grand opera is being presented. 
 It usually happens, however, that when this is 
 the case I have a run of bad luck and cannot 
 spare the necessary money. 
 
 Now and then on a wet day or in the evening 
 I used to play dominoes, but I have wearied of 
 public-houses and public-house company. I 
 have given up singing in public. There are 
 few opportunities except in company for which 
 I do not care. 
 
 235
 
 236 GEORGE MEEK 
 
 The books I have read have been sundry and 
 manifold, covering some of the best productions 
 of all ages, from early Greece to modern France 
 and America. I have still many I wish to read, 
 though: Whitman's Leaves of Grass, Jefferies', 
 Sorrow's and Edward Carpenter's works, be- 
 sides some of Zola's novels. I esteem Zola the 
 greatest writer of modern times. 
 
 In science my aim has been to get as near the 
 truth as to the meaning of life as I could. Psy- 
 chology and biology have been my favourite 
 studies. I owe much to Furneaux, Jordan and 
 the cheap reprints issued by the Rationalist 
 Press Association. 
 
 I am not an agnostic from choice: I cannot 
 see the possibility of the existence of an all-good, 
 all-wise God. I cannot express my point of view 
 better than by quoting an extract from a letter 
 of Charles Darwin which appeared in the Sunday 
 Chronicle yesterday 
 
 "I am aware that if we admit a first cause 
 the mind still craves to know whence it came 
 and how it arose. Nor can I overlook the diffi- 
 culty from the amount of suffering through the 
 world. . . . The safest conclusion seems to be 
 that the whole subject is beyond the scope of 
 man's intellect." 
 
 And, after all, what does it matter what we 
 believe or don't believe? A belief in the Chris- 
 tian dogmas does not appear to make the
 
 THE PLEASURES OF LIFE 237 
 
 majority of men either better or worse. After 
 all, as individuals we are like grains of dust on 
 a great wheel. Whatever we may think of it, 
 or postulate as to the cause of its revolutions or 
 the end to which it is going, it will still go on 
 undeterred by any opinions or speculations of 
 ours. We attach a great deal too much im- 
 portance to our individualities, for after all what 
 are we? 
 
 " The eternal Saki from His bowl hath poured 
 Millions of bubbles like us, and will pour." 
 
 To hear some Christians talk one would think 
 the Creator and Ruler of the universe they 
 postulate has fits every time a mere mortal 
 doubts or denies His existence or questions the 
 probability of some of His attributes as con- 
 ceived by a tribe of ignorant semi-savages two 
 or three thousand years ago. 
 
 Had I remained ignorant of the hard facts 
 of life, never studied, and been comfortably 
 situated, it is possible I might have kept my 
 religion. 
 
 When we are not too much worried we have 
 a little singing at home. My daughter Milly 
 is fond of singing and picks up fresh songs 
 very quickly. Our voices are all we can afford 
 to keep. They will not take them in at the local 
 pawnbroker's. 
 
 Then the little writing I do is some consola-
 
 238 GEORGE MEEK 
 
 tion. A few stray verses have already been pub- 
 lished; one song set to music. I sometimes 
 indulge in story-telling and word-painting in 
 the way of sketches. Competent people tell me 
 they are passable, but the market seems to be 
 overcrowded. 
 
 Naturally my study is irregular and much 
 determined by what I can get. George Moore 
 and Thomas Hardy appeal to me most amongst 
 well-known English writers, but there are some 
 coming men who will bear watching each in his 
 own sphere, and Neil Lyons among them. 
 Amongst contemporary journals I prefer the 
 New Age, the Clarion and the Sunday Chronicle. 
 Very few others appeal to me except the high- 
 priced reviews and magazines the American 
 magazines for preference. . . . 
 
 In this place the screeching and squealing of 
 children, the cursing of drunken or half-drunken 
 men and brawling or screaming women rob 
 one's home life of the quiet rest one needs for 
 study and good work. I have said in a previous 
 chapter that I sometimes have a pint or two of 
 beer. It seems sometimes that I must either 
 have a deep drink or follow the other seven 
 chair-men to the county asylum, the strain is 
 so great, it reaches almost to the breaking point. 
 "Let the poor man drink and forget his misery." 
 It costs me less for a week's beer than it does 
 for the wine consumed by some single members of
 
 THE PLEASURES OF LIFE 239 
 
 the exploiting class at one meal. With a monot- 
 onous worrying occupation one must have some 
 safety valve. The nerves become overwrought. 
 Often the limbs ache from long standing and 
 watching for work. One gets tired, faint and 
 numbed for want of proper and sufficient food. 
 In the summer one is baked standing in the sun, 
 in the winter blown about and shivering in the 
 bitter winds. 
 
 Besides I am by nature inordinately vain, and 
 I need some counteracting weakness to keep me 
 befittingly humble.
 
 CHAPTER XXVII 
 
 MY SOCIALIST WORK 
 
 AFTER the Eastbourne Fabian Society had 
 melted away in 1893, I took no active part in 
 politics till 1895; then being rather better off, I 
 spent a good deal of money distributing copies 
 of the Clarion and the cheap reprint of Merrie 
 England. Of the latter I sold or gave away over 
 five hundred copies. The result was the birth of 
 a new local Socialist organization. We called 
 ourselves the "Clarion Scouts," and met in vari- 
 ous coffee-houses. From one of them we were 
 expelled by the proprietor, who had been fright- 
 ened into doing so by a local carpenter, a rabid 
 Tory, who told him we were anarchists and 
 engaged in the manufacture of bombs. 
 
 Our Fabian Society had consisted mainly of 
 reporters and comps. The "Scouts" contained 
 mostly comps and carpenters. They were all 
 bright, intelligent young men. In those days 
 the Socialist party was the party of all the talents. 
 It was small, but select. Now the Lord only 
 knows what to call it. We again had our old 
 
 240
 
 MY SOCIALIST WORK 241 
 
 friend H. R. Smart to speak for us. At this, 
 as at his previous meeting in '93, he had the irre- 
 pressible Quirk, a well-known local heckler, to deal 
 with; and it was generally admitted that he tied 
 him up into knots. Among our members was a 
 young actor who was resting. He proved a 
 tower of strength to us with his acute common- 
 sense and knowledge of the world. In the autumn 
 a local House of Commons was formed; some of 
 us joined it, sitting on the cross benches. I was 
 member for N.-E. Manchester. I wanted to sit 
 for South -West Ham, but some one else was before 
 me. We had some rare fun, joining in most of the 
 debates. We had one sitting allotted to us, when 
 I moved a resolution in favour of the Initiative 
 and Referendum. It was a packed house, and I 
 suppose I made myself interesting, as I was granted 
 an extension of time. The motion was defeated 
 by four votes fifty-six against, fifty-two for. 
 
 This was the year of my marriage. The next 
 spring I got into trouble, and went to London 
 to look for different work. There I heard Mr. 
 H. M. Hyndmann at the old S. D. F. Hall in the 
 Strand. 
 
 Once before when I was in London I got in 
 touch with one or two men at the Communist 
 Club near Tottenham Court Road, and at the 
 "Club Autonomie" in the same neighbourhood. 
 At the latter I spent the greater part of one 
 night at a concert and ball. The anarchists 
 
 16
 
 242 GEORGE MEEK 
 
 who formed the club evidently knew how to 
 enjoy themselves. They had the assistance of 
 several music-hall artistes late in the evening 
 after, I suppose, they had fulfilled their engage- 
 ments. The next night I attended a meeting of 
 the group, when they talked "business," most 
 of which appeared to be very inconsequential. 
 Among them was an ex-Fenian and a philosophical 
 Englishman who had travelled a great deal. This 
 man gave a long account of a community estab- 
 lished in one of the Western States Montana or 
 Washington which had realized and lived the 
 simple life. One of our own members at East- 
 bourne gave us a long account of the Oneida 
 Community at one of our meetings. I have always 
 been deeply interested in these efforts to realize 
 a better life. I suppose the failure of most of these 
 Collectivist colonies is mainly due to the fact that 
 man has not yet developed sufficiently to live the 
 higher, more unselfish life it demands. 
 
 At the same time I believe I am right in say- 
 ing that the Oneida Community would not have 
 failed but for the interference of the state author- 
 ities, and in the island of Tristan da Cunha, 
 where there is neither workhouse nor prison 
 (there being neither crime nor pauperism to make 
 such institutions necessary), we have an example 
 of what might be expected to follow were So- 
 ciety to resolve itself into the Collectivist form 
 generally.
 
 MY SOCIALIST WORK 243 
 
 While I was in London my letters were sent to 
 the old Clarion office at Fleet Street, where I 
 used to call for them ; but I never saw any of the 
 staff except "The Mac Wilkinson," and unfor- 
 tunately my name has never figured on the 
 Clarion pay-sheet. The dear old "Bounder" 
 had met with a cycle accident, and was in hos- 
 pital with a damaged arm. I read of his death 
 a short time after my return to Eastbourne, and, 
 I am not ashamed to say it, I happen to know 
 that Julia Dawson's washerwoman was not the 
 only one who cried over that calamity. Just as 
 I always read A. Neil Lyons now-a-days imme- 
 diately I get my Clarion, I used then to read the 
 "Bounder." He was a most delightful compan- 
 ion in print. In fact, when he used to write the 
 immortal "front page" immortal in the mem- 
 ories of those who read and prized it I used 
 sometimes to wish he would say more and use a 
 smaller number of stars. There were giants in 
 the movement in those days, men who could 
 wield the "pottle-pot" as well as the pen; men 
 who even if they suffered occasionally with a 
 number nine hump, could also smile on occasion 
 with a number nine smile. But now-a-days we 
 have to conform to the manners and are expected 
 to have the intelligence of Sunday school scholars. 
 I wonder how many " Clarion Fellowships" would 
 consider a man like Pay tame and "respectable" 
 enough to be admitted to their membership?
 
 244 GEORGE MEEK 
 
 When I returned to Eastbourne I had very 
 little work for a long time, and could not help 
 the Scouts at all. They gradually fell away, and 
 the organization ceased to exist. While unem- 
 ployed this time I was given casual jobs by 
 Walter Stretton, who had set up in business for 
 himself, and Mr. Fowler, the well-known book- 
 seller in Cornfield Road. I have to thank the 
 latter for many kindnesses. 
 
 When I got back to work again I made several 
 unsuccessful efforts to form another local Social- 
 ist society, but though I failed I got to know one 
 
 of my best friends, Edward C of Hastings, 
 
 who has remained my friend "through good re- 
 port and ill report" ever since. For some years, 
 being the greater part of the time the only Social- 
 ists in our respective towns, we maintained a 
 regular correspondence, and he biked over to 
 see me every now and then. Then he formed a 
 branch of the S. D. F. at Hastings, which fell 
 through after a time, but it put him in touch 
 with E. J. Pay, a very active Socialist worker 
 who has been invaluable to the movement in 
 the south-eastern counties since. 
 
 After the general election of '06 I got in touch 
 with other Clarion readers in Eastbourne. I put 
 a notice in the Clarion convening a meeting. 
 Seven attended this, and they promised to bring 
 others. An "assembly" of the Clarion Fellow- 
 ship was formed, of which I was chosen secre-
 
 MY SOCIALIST WORK 245 
 
 tary. In six weeks our membership had grown 
 to twenty-four, and in three months to over 
 forty. We organized a series of open-air meet- 
 ings, at the first of which we had E. J. Pay of 
 Tunbridge Wells and Joe Young of Brighton as 
 speakers ; this being a great success we continued 
 them, and they have been carried on in the summer 
 months ever since. 
 
 Having succeeded in organizing Eastbourne 
 socialistically, I turned my attention to Sussex 
 and the adjacent counties. I found there were a 
 few societies scattered about them, but they were 
 mostly disconnected and they left ample room 
 for more. So I called a meeting at Eastbourne 
 on the first Sunday in August, inviting representa- 
 tives from the various societies in Kent, Sussex, 
 Surrey and Hampshire to attend with a view of 
 forming a federation. The meeting was very 
 successful. I had captured F. T. Richards, 
 M.P. for West Wolverhampton, for the outdoor 
 meetings. The room in which we called the 
 conference was all too small; the people over- 
 flowed into adjoining rooms and half-way down 
 the stairs. A lively debate ensued. All present 
 were in favour of my idea, only some wanted a 
 separate organization for each county, others 
 the big scheme covering all four counties. Finally 
 the larger scheme was agreed to, the majority 
 of the Surrey delegates dissenting, but as they 
 went away and formed an organization on the
 
 246 GEORGE MEEK 
 
 same lines for their own county no harm was 
 done. 
 
 The fundamental idea in both the South- 
 Eastern and the Surrey County Federations, and 
 afterwards the Essex County Committee, which 
 came into being in imitation of what we had done, 
 was to get Socialists of all names and grades to 
 work together for organization and propaganda, 
 and that idea has been carried out in all three 
 organizations. They are open alike to S. D. P. * 
 and I. L. P. 2 branches, Clarion organizations, and 
 local Fabian and independent Socialist societies. 
 Of course I had been aware for years of the 
 antagonism between I. L. P. 'er and S. D. F. 3 'er 
 but I felt then, as I feel now, that such antagonism 
 was unworthy of the Socialist cause. Personally, 
 though I have had occasion to quarrel with the 
 official attitude of the I. L. P., I never had any 
 violent leanings either way. I was always simply 
 a " Clarionette," and that, with a strong "New 
 Age" bias, expresses my present frame of mind. 
 The present strength of the party in this country 
 is undoubtedly due more to the efforts of the 
 Clarion and its writers than any other one agency. 
 
 I was elected secretary of the South-Eastern 
 Federation, which I at once set to work to estab- 
 lish on a firm basis. I had thrown myself with 
 
 1 Social Democratic Party. 
 3 Independent Labour Party. 
 3 Social Democratic Federation.
 
 MY SOCIALIST WORK 247 
 
 the utmost enthusiasm into the formation of the 
 local "Clarion Fellowship," spending time and 
 money upon it I could ill afford, and making 
 enemies galore; and I did the same with the 
 Federation. But I found I could not keep pace 
 with the work entailed by remaining secretary 
 of both organizations, so I gave up that of the 
 local society in favour of the larger one. The 
 various branches in the three counties rapidly 
 sent in their affiliation papers and fees. Some 
 of the local "comrades" laughed at me when I 
 first proposed the formation of the Federation, 
 and prophesied failure, but I soon showed them 
 their mistake, and they never forgave me. 
 
 During the first few months I had the help 
 of all three recognized Socialist organs the 
 Clarion, Justice and the Labour Leader. I did 
 not appeal to the New Age because that journal 
 does not engage in the work of organization. 
 After a time, however, the support of the Labour 
 Leader was withdrawn. I wrote to Francis John- 
 son, the national secretary of the I. L. P., asking 
 for the reason. He replied that the N. A. C. were 
 forming exclusively I. L. P. Federations through- 
 out the country, and that they "did not approve 
 of hybrid Federations"; this in spite of the fact 
 that they had been instructed to "co-operate 
 with other Socialist organizations wherever pos- 
 sible" by their own National Conference! Simi- 
 larly J. R. Macdonald wrote a letter to me telling
 
 248 GEORGE MEEK 
 
 me he should advise the I. L. P. not to co-operate 
 with the S. D. P. whenever asked. 
 
 I saw that the South-Eastern Federation was in 
 danger of disintegration. I was not unprepared 
 for this attack, because the North-Eastern Social- 
 ist Federation had been split up by the same 
 influence the previous year; and receiving intima- 
 tion from one or two local secretaries that the 
 work of disruption was already beginning, I 
 determined to make a tour round the three 
 counties to try to stop it. Having been thrown 
 out of work once more, I had ample time on my 
 hands, and I thought I might possibly see or 
 hear of some other occupation in one or the 
 other of the towns I should visit. 
 
 I left my wife and Milly at home, but not 
 entirely unprovided for, through the kindness of 
 some of my friends. 
 
 I was thrown out of work on Monday the I3th 
 of May, 1907, but I waited until the following 
 Thursday before starting, as the S. D. P. branch 
 at Hastings held its weekly meeting on that 
 night. I travelled there from Eastbourne by 
 rail-motor, and was very kindly received both by 
 my old friends Mr. and Mrs. Cruttenden and the 
 local society. I explained the object of my tour 
 to them, and they approved of it, giving me, 
 the former hospitality for the night, and the 
 latter three shillings towards my expenses. 
 
 The next day I rode to Appledore and walked
 
 MY SOCIALIST WORK 249 
 
 the rest of the way into Ashford, which was my 
 next calling place. It was a long, weary walk 
 by a flat winding road. I was very low-spirited, 
 wondering whether I had done right in leaving 
 home and what would happen to me. The 
 branch at Ashford I thought one of the most 
 disaffected ones; but it proved amenable to 
 reason, and has remained loyal ever since. 
 
 I was treated very well indeed by the local 
 comrades. They subscribed handsomely towards 
 my expenses, and entertained me cordially. 
 They foregathered every evening in a small bar 
 at the back of the "Saracen's Head," and I was 
 lodged in a very quaint old house in North Street, 
 the oldest house, it was said, in the town. Here 
 my host, a baker, enlivened the evenings with 
 selections from / Pagliacci and // Trovatore on 
 a very good gramophone. 
 
 I stayed in Ashford from Friday till Monday. 
 On the Sunday evening some of the members of 
 the branch took me for a walk towards Canter- 
 bury. We passed through some woods which 
 were literally carpeted with bluebells. On the 
 Monday morning I and my host ran to the station 
 to catch an early train to Folkestone, but missed 
 it by the fraction of a second. Ashford is a land- 
 lord- and parson-ridden place where the Socialists 
 have to lie very low. 
 
 On reaching Folkestone I first called upon an 
 old stalwart of the movement named Harry
 
 250 GEORGE MEEK 
 
 Brown, with whom I had been corresponding 
 with reference to the formation of a local branch 
 of the I. L. P. He had formerly worked with 
 Will Crooks in Poplar, and was active in the 
 great Dock Strike in London. However, as he 
 was leaving Folkestone for Caterham, he could 
 do nothing there; but a branch has been formed 
 since, and is, I believe, thriving. 
 
 I had also had some correspondence with Mr. 
 H. G. Wells on the subject of a local organiza- 
 tion, it being part of my duty as secretary of 
 the Federation to hunt up Socialists who lived in 
 unorganized towns and districts, and to get 
 them, if possible, to form societies. So I made 
 my way to his beautiful house at Sandgate, won- 
 dering what kind of a reception I should meet 
 with. Although I was flushed with my success 
 at Ashford, I must confess I felt awkward and 
 nervous, but Mr. Wells received me kindly and 
 asked me to return later to lunch. 
 
 It being early, about ten o'clock in fact, I 
 took a long walk over the beautiful Leas down 
 into Folkestone. En passant I had a talk with 
 some bathchair-men whom I saw on their stands. 
 They did not appear very prosperous, and told me 
 that where they hired their chairs they paid their 
 owners a third of their takings for the use of them. 
 This, considering the uncertainty of the work, 
 is far more equitable than a standing weekly rent. 
 
 I found the Leas very exhilarating, but was sur-
 
 MY SOCIALIST WORK 251 
 
 prised to see so few people round the band for a 
 Bank Holiday. 
 
 Returning to Spade House, Mr. Wells asked 
 me into his fine study, where we discussed the 
 work I was doing. Afterwards we went in to 
 lunch, at which function I felt particularly awk- 
 ward, because always at public or private meals 
 I had had the various viands placed on my 
 plate in front of me. But here I found I was ex- 
 pected to help myself from dishes passed over 
 my shoulder by the attendant parlourmaid. How- 
 ever, Mr. and Mrs. Wells chatted easily of the 
 Socialist movement in England and America 
 we were all interested just then in the fate of 
 Meyer, Heywood and Pettibone, the officials of 
 the Western Federation of Miners who were on 
 trial in Idaho for murder. There was another 
 guest present, and after lunch our host showed 
 us over the gardens, which overlooked the sea 
 at such a great height that cross-channel steamers 
 appeared no larger than small row-boats. We 
 had coffee and cigarettes on the lawn, where one 
 of Mr. Wells' little sons brought me some pansies. 
 
 I found Folkestone in the afternoon crowded 
 with Cockney and French trippers, so as there 
 was nothing further for me to do there I went 
 on by rail to Dover. Here the I. L. P. branch 
 was installed in convenient club-rooms in Big- 
 gan Street, just above the Market Square. I 
 liked Dover. It seemed a free and easy kind of
 
 252 GEORGE MEEK 
 
 place. I made friends with a local hotel-keeper 
 and a telephone employee, both of them members 
 of the I. L. P., and they took me about a good 
 deal. I addressed an open-air meeting in the 
 Market Square, and one of a branch of the Rail- 
 way Women's Guild at the I. L. P. Club. 
 
 The first object which met my eyes when I 
 awoke in the morning was the castle, symbol 
 of the oppression and the power of the dominat- 
 ing predatory classes looking down on the 
 emissary of revolt. The Dover people were very 
 kind. During my stay I received ten shillings 
 from J. Taylor Clarke, the National Secretary 
 of the Clarion Fellowship, towards my expenses. 
 Though when I wrote him for assistance I meant 
 it in the way of information and advice, the finan- 
 cial help was welcome. 
 
 From Dover I went by train to Ramsgate, 
 where, although there was no branch, I had a 
 correspondent. He, however, was not at home, 
 so I took the electric tram into Margate. Here 
 it was proposed to form some sort of a society 
 with the help of A. J. Webster, of the S. D. P. 
 executive, who had a house in the town; but as 
 there was no occasion for me to stay I pushed 
 on to Canterbury. Here again I was disap- 
 pointed: my correspondent there, who wanted to 
 form a local Fabian Society, was away at Deal, 
 and my funds were getting very, very low. I 
 should like to have stayed in the premier city,
 
 MY SOCIALIST WORK 253 
 
 too. Who has read and reread David Copper- 
 field and would not? 
 
 So I pushed on to Faversham, riding part of 
 the way and walking the rest through miles of 
 hop fields, arriving in the evening tired out. 
 
 But John K , my correspondent there (there 
 
 was no local organization), made me very wel- 
 come. He was one of the few men I met on my 
 tour to whom I took a strong liking. A big, 
 strongly-built man, a "reader from the first" of 
 the Clarion, greatly interested in his garden, in 
 which he cultivated the luscious and blushing 
 tomato. He took me down into the town at 
 night and showed me the old town hall stand- 
 ing on pillars with the market place beneath, 
 and the old Elizabethan houses, spoilt, many of 
 them, by modern "improvements." The streets 
 were crowded for a little place like Faversham. 
 It was a Saturday night, and the people were 
 walking leisurely about the roadways, as there 
 was little or no vehicular traffic. It seemed a 
 beautiful old place to me, and I fancy I should 
 like to spend a good long holiday there. 
 
 Later we foregathered at an inn with one or 
 two kindred spirits. A thunderstorm with heavy 
 rain came on, and we sat and chatted till it was 
 "time." On the Sunday morning I did a mean 
 thing purposely. There were four of us, John, 
 his pleasant wife and daughter and myself, and 
 there were only three rashers of bacon. One of
 
 254 GEORGE MEEK 
 
 us had to have cold pie, and I decided that John 
 should. So I ate his rasher with all the more 
 relish because I liked him and wanted to place 
 myself under as much obligation as possible to 
 him. They lived in a pleasant new house with 
 large gardens, the rent of which was about half 
 what such a one would fetch in Eastbourne; and 
 the local rates were eleven shillings in the 
 pound ! 
 
 After breakfast John pointed out my road to 
 Sittingbourne the next town on my itinerary. 
 Here, too, I found my correspondent, one of 
 two brothers whom I had nicknamed "The Busy 
 Bs," because of their activity in the movement, 
 away at Chatham. But he returned shortly 
 afterwards, and overtook me along the Sheerness 
 road on his bicycle. He took me to a roadside 
 inn, and "signified the same in the usual way," 
 giving me two shillings besides, at which I was 
 exceeding glad, for I was tired, thirsty, and 
 1 ' broke. ' ' The other ' ' Busy B ' ' had been agitat- 
 ing at Westgate-on-Sea, but up to that time 
 neither of them had succeeded in making a 
 start. Later I had to pay a penny to cross the 
 railway bridge to the Isle of Sheppey, where is 
 the ancient fortress of Sheerness. From Faver- 
 sham to Sheerness was one of my longest walks. 
 
 I received a kind welcome from the comrades 
 at Sheerness. One of them took me to the 
 Working Men's Club, which they claim to be
 
 MY SOCIALIST WORK 255 
 
 the finest out of London. It certainly is a 
 handsome institution, standing in its own 
 grounds, and is the freehold property of its 
 members, all of whom are working men. It 
 has grown with the co-operative movement, and 
 has been built up by its members without any 
 extraneous aid or "patronage." It contains 
 a large lecture-hall, where meetings and enter- 
 tainments are held during the winter months, 
 and has a large lawn for garden-parties in the 
 summer. It has a big billiard-room four tables 
 a very capacious refreshment bar devoted on 
 one side to intoxicants and on the other to tea, 
 coffee and other temperance drinks, in addition 
 to smoking- and reading-rooms, all of which are 
 handsomely decorated. Ladies are admitted to 
 certain rooms. All profits are expended in 
 lectures, entertainments and treats to the mem- 
 bers' children. This has been achieved by men 
 in steady employment in the dockyards. 
 
 I did not see much of the town, as I left the 
 next day. The branch was a fairly strong one, 
 but it was not pushing its propaganda by open- 
 air meetings out of deference to the feelings of 
 other people. It seemed strange here to have to 
 climb up to the sea instead of going down 
 to it. 
 
 The next day I went to Gillingham, where 
 an active agent of the N. A. C. was secretary 
 of the local I. L. P. The sole surviving member
 
 256 GEORGE MEEK 
 
 of the Strood S. D. P. entertained me at his lodg- 
 ings in that long street in Chatham which is 
 mentioned in Tono-Bungay, Luton Street. Chat- 
 ham lies in a hollow between hills almost as steep 
 as those at Hastings. Mean streets everywhere 
 mean houses clustering close under Rochester 
 Cathedral. My host, who was secretary of the 
 Chatham Trades Council, was busy circulariz- 
 ing the trades councils throughout the country, 
 but he proved urbane and informing. 
 
 The next morning I walked by way of Graves- 
 end and Dartford to Bexley Heath a long, 
 tiring walk, the first part of the way through the 
 Dickens country. My funds were very, very 
 low. At Gravesend nearly every one appeared 
 to be out of work, but there was an active I. L. P. 
 Club with a Socialist Sunday school attached. 
 At Dartford E. V. Hartley gave me a ripping 
 tea and a shilling, so I boarded the electric tram 
 into Bexley Heath. 
 
 Here, and at Erith the next day, I found a 
 good deal of active work going on. In the 
 wife of the comrade who put me up I met one 
 of the few active Socialist women workers I have 
 known. I stayed there two or three days, and 
 then walked into London, making my way by 
 Plumstead, Woolwich and Lewisham. I made 
 for the Clarion office thoroughly tired out, but 
 no one was in except the MacW., then I went 
 on to 21 A Maiden Lane, where I fared much
 
 MY SOCIALIST WORK 257 
 
 better. H. W. Lee, the secretary of the S. D. P., 
 was in; he was as busy as the proverbial bee 
 in the oft-mentioned tar barrel, but he made 
 time to take me round the corner and give me 
 a good lunch. He also lent me a shilling. 
 
 It was a dull, damp evening. It had been 
 raining the greater part of the time I had been 
 away from Eastbourne, though providentially it 
 had kept fine for me during my long walks. 
 
 At night I attended a meeting of the Clarion 
 Van Committee at Chandos Hall. I explained 
 the object of my tour, and they made a collec- 
 tion for me amounting to 55. 6d. t which was 
 very acceptable. I forgot to mention that I had 
 caught a severe cold at Margate, through which 
 I had almost entirely lost my voice. I put up 
 at Bruce House in Drury Lane for the night, 
 my bed costing me sevenpence. The next morn- 
 ing I rose early, and as I could not get a parcel 
 I had left at the office, I took a long walk 
 through Kingsway (which I had never seen be- 
 fore), Oxford Street and Park Lane back to 
 Bruce House, thinking all kinds of thoughts, 
 my predominating impression being that I 
 should be very glad to get out into the country 
 again. 
 
 After waiting impatiently for some time I got 
 my parcel from the office at Bruce House, and 
 having paid H. W. Lee the shilling he so kindly 
 lent me, took train to Penge, my first calling 
 
 17
 
 258 GEORGE MEEK 
 
 place on my homeward journey. Here I had 
 a vegetarian dinner with A. J. Taylor and his 
 wife. He had been a frequent speaker for us 
 at Eastbourne, so that it was a treat to see a 
 familiar face again 
 
 At Penge, Beckenham, Bromley, and round 
 about, our workers were very active. I went 
 from Penge to Bromley, where I had the honour 
 and pleasure of talcing tea with Margaret Mac- 
 Millan, to whom, as a member of the N. A. C., 
 I was glad to be able to state my case. She 
 proved a good listener, and fully sympathized 
 with my point of view. A fine, well-built Scots- 
 woman, she has done yeoman service in the cause 
 of Socialism, and I shall always remember with 
 pleasure the afternoon I spent at her house. 
 She suggested she should introduce me to Prince 
 Kropotkin, but we sat talking so long that it be- 
 came too late, and I had to walk on to Sidcup. 
 
 At Sidcup I met the second of my two most 
 
 intimate friends. The first was Edward C of 
 
 Hastings. This was a comrade who had been 
 my chief adviser and supporter since I had been 
 secretary of the Federation. I had felt from his 
 letters that I should like him, so that I was anxious 
 to see him. 
 
 I was more than satisfied with him. A fine, 
 tall, genial Scot, urbane and cultured. I have n't 
 his permission to say exactly what position he 
 fills: he is as modest as he is valuable, and pre-
 
 MY SOCIALIST WORK 259 
 
 fers that his name should be suppressed. But 
 I may say that he occupies a responsible posi- 
 tion on the staff of a well-known weekly journal 
 and that his name is Hugh. He took me to a 
 friend's, where I stayed till the Sunday, he, 
 of course, spending as much time with us as he 
 possibly could, but not half so much as I should 
 have liked. Unfortunately it rained the greater 
 part of the time, so that a look round the neigh- 
 bourhood was out of the question. I gathered 
 that the local I. L. P. had been subjected to the 
 fire of bourgeois persecution, many of its mem- 
 bers having been discharged from their work 
 and given notice to quit their houses because 
 of their political opinions. On Sunday morning 
 we walked by way of Chislehurst to the nearest 
 railway station for Sevenoaks, a pleasant walk 
 enlivened by tales and talk. Hugh assisted me 
 financially as well as by his friendly encourage- 
 ment. 
 
 Several years previous to this, when we 
 Socialists in the South of England were like 
 the elect, "one of a city and two of a tribe," 
 on one of my occasional pilgrimages to London 
 in search of employment I had made the 
 acquaintance of a comrade at Sevenoaks, and I 
 looked forward to meeting him again. It was 
 the postmaster at Sevenoaks who had told me 
 where to find him on my previous visit. He 
 had happened to be at home, alone in the house,
 
 260 GEORGE MEEK 
 
 and he had regaled me with bottled beer and 
 jam tarts, while he read extracts of a play he 
 was writing. On this occasion he was at the 
 station to meet me, but I did not recognize 
 him. However he was pointed out to me, and 
 after showing me a new club house and some 
 pretty cottages they had built through the local 
 co-operative society, he gave me dinner at the 
 "Yew Tree," regretting he could not take me 
 home as he and some friends were going away 
 that afternoon to a picnic. The Sevenoaks 
 Clarion Fellowship was one of the eleven 
 societies brought into being during my year of 
 office owing directly or indirectly to our 
 agitation. 
 
 I found I should have to wait some time for 
 the next train to Tunbridge, so I decided to 
 walk, hoping to get there in time to see the local 
 secretary and catch the train to Tunbridge Wells, 
 where I was anxious to spend the night. How- 
 ever, it took longer than I thought, so I had to 
 give the Tunbridge branch a "bye." The roads 
 about this part of Kent are very beautiful, so 
 I suppose that is why I did not hurry. I reached 
 the "Wells" early in the evening, and had some 
 difficulty in finding the local secretary. I had 
 forgotten that they held afternoon meetings on 
 the Common, and it seems that while I was 
 searching for him he was inquiring for me. 
 However, I found one of the S. D. P.ers at last,
 
 MY SOCIALIST WORK 261 
 
 and my old friend Joe Young, who was the 
 speaker for the day, at tea with him. This was 
 quite satisfactory. I listened to a discourse 
 at night on "The Reward of Genius," which 
 interested the crowd so much that they stayed 
 till nearly ten o'clock, and I had to make a bolt 
 into a closing pub to get some tobacco it was 
 too late for a glass of beer. 
 
 The next morning, instead of turning to the 
 left to Maidstone, as I should have done, the 
 magnet of home drew me back to Eastbourne. 
 I walked to Heathfield, from which I rode to 
 Hailsham to give myself a rest, and then walked 
 the rest of the way home, where I was wel- 
 comed by Kate and Mildred after my long 
 journey. 
 
 Joe Young had invited me to go over to 
 Brighton and give an account of my tour and of 
 the causes which led me to undertake it to his 
 society, the S. D. P. I walked the twenty-three 
 miles and found it very tiring. However, I did 
 not regret it afterwards, for I found the Brighton 
 comrades most kind, not to say cordial. They 
 fully approved of what I had done for the move- 
 ment, and at the suggestion of Will Evans, a 
 most useful speaker who was at the time on the 
 Town Council, they gave me quite a handsome 
 collection. I stayed the night with Joe Young. 
 I had not quite made up my mind whether to 
 go on by way of Worthing to Portsmouth and
 
 262 GEORGE MEEK 
 
 Southampton or to return to Eastbourne. As 
 it poured in torrents the next morning and I 
 had no overcoat with me, I decided upon turn- 
 ing back. There was really no occasion for me 
 to go on, as I had no reason to think the Hamp- 
 shire comrades disaffected. 
 
 Whenever I was given an opportunity to 
 address the members of the various societies, and 
 in every case, except at Gillingham, where I 
 saw the secretary, I was successful in retaining 
 and strengthening their adherence to the Federa- 
 tion. Everywhere without exception I was 
 treated with the utmost courtesy and kindness, 
 and those three weeks will always contain 
 fragrant memories for me. 
 
 I returned to Eastbourne in the beginning of 
 June. Our annual conference was held on the 
 first Sunday in August at the Great Hall 
 Restaurant, Tunbridge Wells. Here a vote of 
 censure upon J. R. Macdonald was carried by 
 a large majority, although a friend of his named 
 Paul Campbell tried to defend his position. 
 Having put the Federation on a satisfactory 
 footing, I had intended for a long while to resign 
 my office at the end of the year; this I did, 
 and a Tunbridge Wells man named Veals, who 
 having greater leisure than I and being a cyclist 
 was able to make himself more useful to the 
 different branches. I had carried out my year's 
 secretarial work at a total cost of 2 55.
 
 MY SOCIALIST WORK 263 
 
 The Federation is still flourishing, and I be- 
 lieve the ideal it stands for the co-operation 
 of the various sections of the Socialist party- 
 will ultimately find acceptance throughout the 
 movement. Just now there is a good deal of 
 ferment in it. On the one hand is the conserva- 
 tive element pulling towards mere Labourism 
 perhaps Liberalism; on the other the uncom- 
 promising Socialists who see no sense in being 
 led out of the swamps of the old political parties 
 with the idea of forming a definite independent 
 Socialist party of their own only to be led back 
 again. 
 
 Although I have ceased to take a very active 
 part in politics for some time, I am entirely in 
 sympathy with the latter. Some day the workers 
 will tire of mere politicians of every shade and 
 will organize themselves for the definitive 
 struggle with Capitalism. Then, thoroughly 
 grounded in the economics and ethics of Social- 
 ism, they will know what to do. It will be no 
 great loss to the idle rich for them to have to 
 live useful, healthy lives, nor to the business 
 man to be relieved of the ever-increasing strain 
 of competition. The worker will have no fear of 
 unemployment or of want through sickness or 
 old age. The reign of hatred engendered by 
 the competition of individuals and the war of 
 classes will give place to that of "Peace on earth, 
 goodwill to men. "
 
 CHAPTER XXVIII 
 
 TRYING TO CLIMB 
 
 BEING free from the duties imposed upon me 
 by my political work, I set myself during the 
 following winter to try to solve a problem which 
 had presented itself to me for some time, i.e., 
 how to so improve the phonograph as to make 
 it, in combination with the cinematograph, pro- 
 duce entire plays or operas. 
 
 I had no instrument of my own with which to 
 experiment, nor means with which to get models 
 made to my designs; but I studied, as far as I 
 could, all the various factors involved, and 
 finally got out a set of drawings showing how, 
 allowing for every contingency (as I thought), 
 the tubular records could be lengthened to 
 almost any given extent. These, by a mechan- 
 ism which I designed, could be carried at the 
 right speed and with the right number of revolu- 
 tions under the needle of the phonograph. 
 
 I submitted my drawings with explanatory 
 notes to Messrs. Pathe Freres, the Edison Bell 
 Record Co. and others, with the same result: 
 
 264
 
 TRYING TO CLIMB 265 
 
 they all "regretted to say they did not think 
 my idea could be made commercially successful. " 
 
 I have hinted in previous chapters that I have 
 written songs and stories from time to time: 
 while at the theatre I wrote a play and submitted 
 scenarios for two or three musical comedies to 
 Mr. George Edwardes, but, like my stories, they 
 were failures. 
 
 After I had grown tired of trying to get my 
 phonograph idea taken up, I began to write 
 this story at Mr. Wells' suggestion, varying it 
 with a treatise on ethics and one or two works 
 of fiction, but failure to get any of these accepted 
 has instilled a much needed measure of modesty 
 into my estimate of my own powers. 
 
 Yet it is needful that I should do something 
 different to bathchair-work. This is growing 
 more unreliable every year. I began this year 
 by being out four weeks in January for four 
 shillings and sixpence! Then I had two ex- 
 periences of Corporation relief work. 
 
 It was so many years since I had done any 
 heavy manual labour that I looked forward to 
 my new occupation with some misgivings. I 
 understood, however, that I should only be 
 employed a week, and, anyway, anything was 
 better than standing about doing nothing. So 
 with some trepidation, but a determination to 
 do my best, I walked down to the "relief" work 
 at the place appointed.
 
 266 GEORGE MEEK 
 
 It was a bright, cold morning, the ground 
 covered with hoar-frost. I had to walk rather 
 more than a mile from my house; that, how- 
 ever, made me warm. The Corporation was 
 laying out a new recreation ground for the 
 people of the East End, on the Crumbles. These 
 "Crumbles," as they are called, are wide 
 stretches of shingle left by the sea, which has 
 been receding from this part of the coast for 
 centuries. Inland from them lies Pevensey 
 Castle. This is now fully two miles from the 
 high water line. When it was first built the sea 
 washed its walls. 
 
 I found a large number of men of all sorts 
 and trades gathered round an open fire. I gave 
 my post-card to the foreman, who, after blow- 
 ing his whistle at eight o'clock, directed the 
 men to their various tasks. I, with others, had 
 to carry clay from a large heap to a man who 
 was spreading it over the rough beach to form 
 a foundation for the turf. It was very heavy 
 work. The clay had to be loaded into wheel- 
 barrows and run along planks to the spreader. 
 It was hard to get up, sticky and half frozen, 
 and I, being inexperienced, had selected a poor 
 shovel and had not provided myself with a pick. 
 I found I could wheel the barrows moderately 
 full, but not very full, and that was the one 
 and only time I got into trouble with the foreman, 
 either during the six days I put in on this job
 
 TRYING TO CLIMB 267 
 
 or three I had at another later on. On the second 
 day I told him I could not wheel the barrows 
 loaded as he wanted them; I told him I did 
 not mind loading them, but for me to trundle 
 them along the planks was a physical impos- 
 sibility. He jeered at me on account of my or- 
 dinary occupation as bathchair-man but he 
 let me have my way. If he had n 't I should 
 have had to give up the job. 
 
 The work made me very stiff. I could scarcely 
 walk home. When I sat down anywhere it was 
 agony to get up again, but I stuck to it till the 
 Saturday. The last three days we had to deal 
 with rough turf instead of the heavy clay, which 
 was a change for the better. But it was still 
 very hard work, harder than it need have been, 
 because, though we had one shirker in our gang, 
 we had two or three men who had got used to 
 it and made the pace rather warm, probably 
 with the hope of obtaining more employment. 
 Besides the pain in my back I had one under 
 my right shoulder-blade, which stayed with 
 me all the time. We left off work at 12.30 on 
 Saturday. I spent the afternoon resting and 
 reading the Woman Worker, the New Age and 
 the Clarion I had been too tired to read all 
 the week. At night I sat on our kitchen table 
 to get near the gas to read; in getting down 
 the pain in my side suddenly intensified and 
 something seemed to turn over inside me. I
 
 268 GEORGE MEEK 
 
 was almost helpless; I could not stoop to take 
 my boots off, and managed to get upstairs only 
 with great difficulty. Undressing and getting 
 into bed resolved itself into a very labour of 
 Hercules. I spent a wretched night: every 
 time I moved or coughed I endured such agony 
 I thought I should faint. 
 
 The next day I could not move, nor the next, 
 at which I was sincerely sorry, as I might have 
 had three days more work. We were paid five- 
 pence an hour for a seven-hour day, and as 
 funds were very low at home I should have 
 been glad of the money. For the same reason I 
 could not pay for a doctor; so, much against 
 the grain, I had to send for the parish one. I 
 hope he does n 't treat all the patients he is paid 
 out of the rates to attend to with the same 
 brusqueness. Still, I suppose that when a man 
 has got so low that he has to apply for medical 
 relief it does n't much matter whether he recovers 
 or not. Probably in nine cases out of ten it would 
 be better for him if he didn't. I hope I 
 may not injure him with his employers, the Board 
 of Guardians, if I say I found the relieving 
 officer who came to see me more humane and 
 considerate. 
 
 I began to get about again towards the end 
 of the week, and was engaged during the next 
 week or two upon this story. Then another 
 post-card arrived, telling me to report myself for
 
 TRYING TO CLIMB 269 
 
 work on the King's Drive. This is a splendid 
 new road the Council have built, connecting 
 Eastbourne with Hampden Park, and this winter 
 they have been carrying out its surface drainage 
 with unemployed labour. I had been told that 
 the work was harder than that on the Crumbles, 
 but though I had tried I could not get a chair, 
 so I was very glad of the chance to get the work. 
 It was real navvy's work, and I wondered how 
 I should get on with it. 
 
 The foreman put me to get up the trench 
 with pick and shovel at first, then seeing, I sup- 
 pose, that I was not used to it, he gave me a 
 job as "stage" man: that is to say, I had to 
 stand on the edge of the trench and shovel the 
 debris back as the men got it out, keeping 
 a clear space for three workers below. We 
 worked on Thursday and Friday in a bleak 
 wind with a good deal of snow in it, eight hours 
 instead of seven, but I found it did not tire me 
 nearly as much as the clay. The materials of 
 which the road was made up were not so heavy. 
 I had a good shovel, which I could easily keep 
 clean and, by adopting a methodical way of 
 working, I kept my end up pretty well. Still, it 
 was tiring, and the sound of the foreman's 
 whistle, telling us to knock off for lunch or 
 dinner or at five o'clock for the day, was 
 welcome. 
 
 On the Saturday the ground was covered with
 
 270 GEORGE MEEK 
 
 snow, and we were all set to work clearing the 
 pavements. This was a change, but it was 
 harder work on account of the weight of the 
 brooms used, and much to my disgust I found 
 myself on Sunday morning unable to move with 
 the old pain in my side. It was the same on 
 Monday. This made me angry, because not 
 only did it make me appear foolish and in- 
 capable, but it did me out of a week's work 
 and nineteen shillings in wages. I got up on 
 the Thursday morning determined that I would 
 work; but I proposed, my muscular rheuma- 
 tism, pleurisy or whatever it is, disposed. I 
 soaked myself in spirits of turpentine till I smelt 
 horribly, but I did not send for that parish 
 doctor again. I was very sorry about this last 
 breakdown; I did not dislike my work as "stage 
 man" nor the foreman, nor did I mind the snow 
 sweeping, but even I cannot do impossibilities, 
 and it is impossible to do hard, heavy work 
 which necessitates constant movement when 
 your side feels as though it was in an iron vice 
 and every cough and motion sends a dart through 
 your lungs. 
 
 I have been for a great many years deeply 
 interested in the unemployed problem, but this 
 is the first time I have worked amongst them. 
 Although the work given them is quite unlike 
 what most of them have been used to, there are 
 very few shirkers amongst them; mostly they
 
 TRYING TO CLIMB 271 
 
 try to work as hard as they can. Many of them 
 have wives and large families dependent upon 
 them, so that it seems absurd to employ them 
 for about one week in four, which appears to be 
 the rule. It is true they occasionally receive 
 tickets for coal and food in their "off" weeks 
 from the Mayor's Poor Fund, but how far do 
 these go towards keeping perhaps four, five or 
 more persons? One of our councillors has per- 
 sistently denied that there is any distress in 
 Eastbourne. He has always moved the rejec- 
 tion of any grant in aid to the town from the 
 funds available in the hands of the Local 
 Government Board. He is a Tory (I always 
 call people of this party Tory, everybody knows 
 what I mean, and they change the name they 
 call themselves so often). I do not know 
 whether he is a married man or not (only married 
 men are employed on the relief works), but if 
 he is I should like him to be unemployed in East- 
 bourne just one winter and see how he could 
 live and support those dependent on him on one 
 week's wages of from sixteen to nineteen shil- 
 lings in four, with a few grocery and coal tickets 
 in between! 
 
 But, of course, working people, especially the 
 poor and unemployed, belong to a different race 
 from the exalted class whose interest the well-to- 
 do party looks after. It does n't matter whether 
 they eat or starve, live or die, there will be
 
 272 GEORGE MEEK 
 
 always plenty left to exploit for the rents and 
 profits upon which the "gentry" live. 
 
 I trust the reports of the Poor Law Commis- 
 sion will have some effect in bettering things 
 for the unemployed before long. I did hope 
 the Labour Party would have done something 
 before now, but most of its leaders appear to be 
 more concerned in taming the Party which sent 
 them to Parliament to their own hands than in 
 endeavouring to forward the interests of their 
 supporters. The latest news is that Independ- 
 ent Labour Party branches are not allowed to 
 communicate with each other respecting the 
 resolutions they wish to submit to its Annual 
 Conference: they must move only to the strings 
 it suits J. R. Macdonald to pull. The workers, 
 apparently, so far as politicians of every shade 
 care, can go on working when they are wanted 
 for a bare subsistence wage, and when their 
 services are not required they may still be per- 
 mitted to slink into some out-of-the-way corner 
 and starve. 
 
 The whole situation makes me sick at heart 
 and weary. We preach and organize, spend 
 our years in labouring to encourage the workers 
 to unite together to bring about a more sane 
 and just social order, to lift the burdens from 
 their shoulders which grind them into the dust, 
 to abolish once and for all the crying shame of 
 the willing man seeking work and finding none,
 
 TRYING TO CLIMB 273 
 
 and then some interested jack-in-office comes 
 along fostering dissension and division for his 
 own personal ends. What is the use of all our 
 devotion and sacrifice when any specious trickster 
 can undo half what we have done? While there 
 will be always those from other classes who will, 
 from very nobility of soul, devote themselves 
 to the cause of the workers, these last must look 
 to themselves for their own salvation, and that 
 will never come until they stand by those, whether 
 of their own class or not, who serve them from 
 love and refuse to listen to those who wish to 
 mislead and exploit them. The workers can 
 save themselves when they want to collectively. 
 The system they have to overthrow is a ridiculous 
 monstrosity; one good heave all together and it 
 would disappear 'mid a storm of derision and 
 laughter. 
 
 And so my long tale draws to an end. It has 
 taken a long while to write and revise: I have 
 had only just an hour or two a day to give to it, 
 as since February 1909 I have been out with a 
 chair again. 
 
 Our work has grown more uncertain than 
 ever. Many weeks I earn less than ten shillings 
 even in the summer time. Besides, since my 
 illness last autumn I have never been quite well. 
 There are days together when I have to force 
 myself to eat. I feel weary of everything; of 
 the long struggle which never seems to leave
 
 274 GEORGE MEEK 
 
 me any farther ahead, of the wretched uncertain 
 life, and the never-ending worry. 
 
 I have written of my wife's work as an ironer. 
 That used to help us considerably : she could nearly 
 always earn ten shillings a week and over up to this 
 year. But now, often, she can get no work at all, 
 and when she gets any the prices paid for it (she 
 is a piece worker) are so small that she seldom 
 earns more than eight shillings, even for a full 
 week. In two of the laundries she has tried this 
 year the prices paid were very low and the women 
 had no books or papers to show the amount of work 
 they did. She has just been discharged from one 
 of these places because, finding they had cheated 
 her out of a shilling, by keeping an account of the 
 work she did herself, she complained of it. The 
 owner of this laundry can buy houses : his workers 
 must find it difficult to buy bread. 
 
 How we shall get through the coming winter 
 I don't know. Still, somehow we seem to have 
 kept on through the years almost as by a miracle : 
 always on the edge of the abyss, never quite sink- 
 ing into it, seldom getting far away from the 
 edge. When there has been a little luck of any 
 kind it has usually been accompanied by some 
 sickness or some other trouble which has counter- 
 balanced it. 
 
 To those who are inclined to blame me for my 
 politics I ask, can you show me any better way?
 
 TRYING TO CLIMB 275 
 
 Christianity in various forms has been tried 
 for nearly two thousand years, and has failed. 
 Liberalism and Conservatism have been tried, 
 and they have failed. So far as the workers 
 are concerned the attitude of Christians, Liberals 
 and Conservatives, as such, is uncompromisingly 
 hostile. 
 
 Suppose all the schemes of Social Reform 
 which are "in the air" (and likely to remain 
 there so far as I can see) are adopted: sup- 
 posing the hungry school children are fed, 
 necessitous mothers are endowed, unemployed 
 working men maintained, all the aged pensioned, 
 all the sick and disabled adequately cared for: 
 what will you have then? On the one hand still 
 the wealthy exploiting class, on the other a class 
 of slaves and paupers. Bread would be assured, 
 it is true, but is bread everything? Is there 
 nothing to be said for manhood? 
 
 At the time of writing nearly six months 
 after the bulk of this book was written I take 
 little part and little interest in current politics. 
 I am weary of all the lying, the meanness and 
 trickery it involves. I just bury myself in the 
 books I am reading (Browning, ^Eschylus, 
 Sophocles, Euripides, Virgil, Lucretius) and the 
 stories I am trying to write. Some day, per- 
 haps, justice will come by her own: men will learn 
 to live natural and honourable lives. 
 
 But until the conscience of humanity has so
 
 276 GEORGE MEEK 
 
 developed that men will no more think of ex- 
 ploiting their fellow-men than they now think, 
 in civilized lands at least, of buying and selling 
 them in the slave-market, there will always be 
 such wasted lives as mine. And most men, 
 living as they do under unjust, unnatural, un- 
 healthy conditions, do live wasted lives.
 
 EPILOGUE 
 
 IN the foregoing pages it has been my painful 
 duty to record many unpleasant things. I was 
 bound by the terms of my agreement with Mr. 
 Wells to be truthful, and I could not write smooth 
 things and at the same time fulfil my agreement. 
 But now in these last few pages I have to tell of 
 brighter days. Easier, more peaceful days already 
 experienced, and still brighter ones in view. 
 
 After I had finished the revision of the last 
 chapter and sent this work to Messrs. Constable, 
 things grew from bad to worse. The chair work 
 was irregular and unsatisfactory owing to the 
 keen competition and the unsettled weather. My 
 poor wife walked from laundry to laundry, but 
 could not get a start. The person who owned 
 the chair I hired worried me daily for his rent, 
 and as I seldom earned ten shillings a week I 
 could not pay him much. 
 
 I suppose as I am now strong I ought to be 
 merciful. I am, as a rule, forgiving; but I find 
 it hard to forgive, or at least to forget, this man. 
 He made my life such a burden to me this summer. 
 He had four bathchairs. One was let to a 
 
 277
 
 278 GEORGE MEEK 
 
 butcher who had been frozen out of his calling 
 by the frozen meat industry. One was let to an 
 elderly man who had been a groom at one time 
 in the service of Lord Middleton the inventor 
 of the "Brodrick" cap. One had formerly been 
 a guard on one of the northern railways I think 
 the North-Eastern. The fourth was my un- 
 fortunate self. Nearly every day the chair- 
 owner would come worrying us, sometimes on his 
 bicycle, sometimes walking, but always an object 
 of laughter to the other men because he dressed in 
 a dark cycling suit with loud golf stockings, and 
 carried a leather bag in his hand they presumed 
 to hold our rents. 
 
 At home things were far from being peaceful 
 or pleasant. We occupied a three-roomed flat. 
 The windows of the front room had been broken 
 by boys playing football in the street, and never 
 repaired. The flat beneath us we occupied the 
 second floor was let to a hawker who had five 
 children. Some of these were crying most of 
 the time, all of them some of the time; I never 
 met with such children for weeping and wailing. 
 I could not write a line for them. At night we 
 were frequently awakened from our "beauty" 
 sleep by drunken brawls, sometimes in the house, 
 sometimes outside. Altogether, what with the 
 worry of "Stockings," or "Knickerbockers" (as 
 the chair-owner was called), and the want of rest 
 and quiet at home, I was getting dangerously
 
 EPILOGUE 279 
 
 near qualifying for a place at Hellingly. In fact, 
 if I had n't had an occasional deep drink I have 
 no doubt but that I should have been there before 
 now. 
 
 Things grew from worse to worse still. "Knick- 
 erbockers" threatened to stop the chair daily. 
 I could not get a decent job. Often we had no 
 dinner on week days, and just bread and cheese 
 or ready-cooked bacon and bread on Sundays; 
 to buy which I had to go out on Sunday mornings 
 and earn the money. Clothes, boots, bed-clothes 
 were in pawn, money borrowed on many of the 
 tickets. In all our experience we never found 
 things so difficult. 
 
 Then a change came. It is curious, but I kept 
 thinking, as things grew worse and worse, "'Tis 
 darkest just before the dawn." Perhaps people 
 always think that, when troubles accumulate, 
 whether there is any relief in store for them or 
 not; but certainly this thought was often in my 
 mind as I pondered over one thing and another. 
 
 One day I had had no work in the morning. 
 In the afternoon it was very cold. I put my chair 
 away early my overcoat was in pawn and went 
 to the Free Library, where I entered my name 
 as being unemployed which I was most of the 
 time hoping to be put on the relief work again. 
 I expected to lose the chair every day. Having 
 filled up the form provided, I sat at a side table 
 for some time looking over guides to Victoria
 
 280 GEORGE MEEK 
 
 and other parts of British Columbia, wishing 
 myself out there, where many members of my 
 family have done well. 
 
 That night we had no money and nothing to 
 eat. I tried to sell some books, but could get 
 no one to buy them. The next morning was 
 fine, and I took the books out with me to try to 
 sell them again; failing, I left them in the coach- 
 house and went out with the chair. I managed 
 to get an hour early, which provided us with 
 dinner and something for tea. Wishing to avoid 
 "Knickerbockers," and hoping to earn some- 
 thing to give him in the afternoon, I took the 
 chair up towards the Grand Hotel. I had been 
 in the habit of standing near the railway station 
 in Gildredge Road. 
 
 Before I went home to dinner a fellow chair- 
 man named West told me that a stranger had 
 been inquiring for me. He said that he looked 
 like a working-man, so I concluded that it was 
 either some one to whom I owed some money or 
 a Socialist from away. 
 
 After dinner I found that this stranger had 
 been inquiring for me of other chair-men. I 
 began to get interested and anxious, as I under- 
 stood he had gone up to my chair on the parade 
 to wait for me. So I hurried up to it, acquiring 
 three halfpence-worth of Dutch courage at the 
 Devonshire Park Restaurant en passant. When 
 I reached the chair I found a tall, well-built
 
 EPILOGUE 281 
 
 elderly man sitting near it talking to a fellow 
 chair-man with whom I have always been friendly, 
 named Piper. 
 
 "Mick," he said, "here is a gentleman wants 
 to see you." 
 
 ("Mick," or "Mickie," corruptions of my sur- 
 name, are what I am usually called by the other 
 bathchair-men . ) 
 
 "You don't know me, I suppose," the stranger 
 said to me. 
 
 "No, I can't say that I do," I replied. 
 
 "Well, I 'm a Meek," he said. 
 
 "Oh!" I replied. "From New Zealand?" 
 I could see it was not my father's brother John, 
 whose photograph I have had for some years. 
 He used to pride himself upon his resemblance 
 to Lord Roberts, and, of course, had a grey 
 moustache. This man did not resemble Lord 
 Roberts in the least. (I have seen and spoken to 
 "Bobs," so I know.) For one thing he was tall 
 and broad-shouldered, and though he had a heavy 
 moustache, it was not grey. 
 
 "No," he answered, "from Vancouver." 
 
 "Not Dick?" I exclaimed. 
 
 "Yes," he said, "I'm Dick." 
 
 "Well, I'm d d!" I exclaimed. I hope 
 
 my readers will forgive me, but I was completely 
 surprised. I had not heard from my uncle Dick, 
 my father's youngest brother, for over ten years, 
 and he was about the last man I ever expected
 
 282 GEORGE MEEK 
 
 to see in England. It seems he had been staying 
 at Hastings with a cousin of his for some time, 
 purposing to look me up, but unable to com- 
 municate with me because he did not know my 
 address. We sat talking for half-an-hour, I 
 explaining how I was living, and telling him of 
 my hopes (then growing very slender) from this 
 book: he telling me of his life in British Colum- 
 bia, and, while he did not lead me to think he 
 was very well off himself, painting the life of 
 working-people there in the most glowing colours. 
 
 While we sat there "Knickerbockers" came 
 up and called me on one side. 
 
 "Have you any money for me?" he asked. 
 
 "No," I answered, "I have only earned 2s. 6d. 
 this week." 
 
 (This happened on a Thursday Nov. 4th.) 
 
 "Very well," he said, "you take the chair 
 home and hand me over the key of the coach- 
 house." 
 
 "All right," I answered. I was not surprised, 
 and, to tell the truth, I did n't much care. 
 
 "And look here," he said, "you will lose your 
 licence in a day or two." 
 
 "That won't be a great loss," I retorted, and 
 turning my back upon him I asked my uncle if 
 he would walk down with me to the coach-house. 
 On the way I told him what had happened, but I 
 neither asked him to help me out of my trouble 
 nor did I expect him to. He asked me if I could
 
 EPILOGUE 283 
 
 get a decent living if I had a chair of my own, 
 but I told him that of late years the work had 
 declined so much it was not worth troubling 
 about. I tried to put the best face I could on 
 it by explaining that I hoped to be put on the 
 Corporation Relief Works. If I had but known, 
 this uncle of mine, though he was not too well 
 dressed, and certainly wore neither a knicker- 
 bocker suit nor golf stockings, could have bought 
 me half-a-dozen chairs if I had wanted them 
 and he had cared to. 
 
 We walked down to the coach-house, where I 
 put the chair away and handed over the key in 
 silence to its owner. From there we went to the 
 "Rose and Crown," where we had a drink, for 
 which my uncle would not let me pay. Instead, 
 he showed me some plaster work over the boot- 
 maker's shop opposite which he had done him- 
 self some forty years before. And on the way 
 home he showed me the house in East Street 
 in which I was born and where he had last seen 
 me. 
 
 When we reached home my little daughter, 
 who had been in bed all day with the toothache, 
 fell in love with him, and he with her. We had 
 tea, he telling us of his early life in England, when 
 I found I had many connections, aunts and 
 cousins, of whom I had never heard before, here 
 and at Hastings. When we got up from the 
 table to go out my uncle said
 
 284 GEORGE MEEK 
 
 "I have a little present for you. Which shall 
 I give it to?" 
 
 "You'd better give it to Kate," I answered. 
 He put something into my wife's hand, which 
 made her face light up and her eyes shine. I 
 thought it was five, or perhaps ten, shillings. It 
 was a sovereign. 
 
 We went for a walk together, then return- 
 ing home my wife came out with us to accom- 
 pany my uncle to the station. As we had plenty 
 of time we took a walk round. Incidentally 
 we called at "The Eagle" for drinks, and my 
 uncle told the landlord that he used to frequent 
 the selfsame tavern nearly forty years before 
 when he was helping to build St. Saviour's Church 
 steeple. "We used to call it," he said, "'wetting 
 the Eagle's wings.'" "We," I said, "have a 
 shorter term for it. We call it 'feeding the bird.' " 
 "The Eagle" is one of the cleanest and best 
 conducted houses in the town. 
 
 He went away to Hastings, promising to write 
 to us. He had said I thought only in fun that 
 he wanted Milly to go back to Vancouver with 
 him. We were to follow, I understood, as soon 
 as the returns from this work would enable us 
 to pay our passages out. The next day I paid 
 the chair-owner four shillings, and he let me 
 have the chair again on the understanding that 
 I should pay him another four on the following 
 Monday morning. During the next three days
 
 EPILOGUE 285 
 
 I only earned four shillings, so I went to his 
 office to tell him I could not pay him then, but 
 as I knew I should have ten shillings on the 
 Tuesday, I would pay him then. He refused 
 to wait another day, so I handed him over the 
 key. 
 
 So we were both out of work again. I had 
 sent this book some time before to its publishers, 
 and slender as my hopes of its success were, they 
 began to grow from the fact that it had not 
 been returned. So I wrote to Messrs. Constable 
 and Mr. Wells asking whether anything was 
 being arranged. My uncle had sent us a post- 
 card asking if we were getting the girl ready to 
 go back with him. 
 
 On the Tuesday I had the ten shillings I expected. 
 On the Wednesday I heard that the book was to 
 be published. On the Thursday my uncle came 
 to see us again. This time he gave us two pounds, 
 and definitely arranged to take Milly back with 
 him. I did not know then upon what terms my 
 book would be published, and we thought it 
 better for her to go than to stay with us and face 
 the hardships we expected this winter. He offered 
 to take my wife as well, but she did not like the 
 idea of leaving me behind alone. If I could have 
 raised twenty pounds, he said, he could have taken 
 us all! And had he known a month earlier how 
 we were situated, he would have sent home for the 
 money.
 
 286 GEORGE MEEK 
 
 A good part of the two pounds was spent upon 
 things for the journey we expected Milly to have 
 to take; but on the following Tuesday I found 
 that I should have an ample allowance during 
 the winter months to enable me to finish this 
 work and correct the proofs. We decided, there- 
 fore, that it would be better for Milly to stay 
 and go out with us in the spring. So I went to 
 Hastings in the afternoon and communicated 
 this good news to my uncle, who, while I think 
 he regretted the little one was not going back with 
 him, admitted that it would be best. He arranged 
 to send passes for all of us as soon as he got home 
 and could get one of his houses ready for us to go 
 into when we got there. 
 
 I do not know even now exactly how he is 
 situated. He told us that he had worked a great 
 many years, a great part of the time in the con- 
 struction of the Canadian Pacific Railway, and 
 that while he had not been compelled to deny 
 himself, he had been able, by avoiding reckless 
 waste, and by judiciously investing his savings 
 in real estate in the vicinity of Vancouver City, 
 to acquire sufficient to live upon comfortably 
 without any longer being compelled to work. He 
 assured me I should find no difficulty in obtaining 
 suitable employment out there. "And," he said, 
 "if you don't you will never want while I live." 
 
 It had been arranged that I should meet Mr. 
 Wells and Mr. T. Seccombe a member of the
 
 EPILOGUE 287 
 
 firm of publishers who are responsible for this 
 book at Spiers and Pond's Central Restaurant 
 on the Wednesday to discuss details. As it 
 happened my uncle was leaving for Liverpool 
 on the same date, so I joined him at Polegate 
 and we travelled up together, my wife and Milly 
 going to Polegate with me to bid him au revoir. 
 Arrived at London Bridge we made our way 
 through the throngs waiting to see the Kings of 
 England and Portugal pass through the City to 
 Ludgate Circus. Here we found Mr. Seccombe, 
 but my uncle could not wait to see Mr. Wells, 
 who was a few minutes late, as he was anxious 
 to get on to Euston. I was sorry Mr. Wells missed 
 this typical pioneer of Empire. 
 
 We had an exceedingly plain but substantial 
 and enjoyable lunch, which occupied us two 
 hours. I had no thought for the crowds of 
 people lunching around us. So much had hap- 
 pened in so short a time, and there were these 
 two gentlemen talking, talking, and I did not 
 wish to miss a word. Something seemed to 
 have made Mr. Wells particularly happy 
 although he chaffed Mr. Seccombe unmercifully 
 in his rdle as publisher, he beamed on both of 
 us. We had lager beer in pint jugs, roast beef 
 and potatoes, apple tart with cream, and cheese. 
 Then my two hosts tossed to see who was to 
 pay. Mr. Wells won, but insisted on paying. 
 He said a new rule had been introduced, by which
 
 288 GEORGE MEEK 
 
 the winner instead of the loser paid; so Mr. 
 Seccombe insisted upon another toss. 
 
 Then Mr. Wells had to leave us to keep an 
 appointment. Mr. Seccombe took me along 
 Fleet Street in search of the Outer Temple, 
 where he wished to see Mr. F. J. Green, the 
 secretary of the International Arbitration Society 
 and Socialist Candidate for Bristol. Though Mr. 
 Walter Jerrold, a grandson of the author of Mrs. 
 Caudle's Curtain Lectures, directed us, we found 
 some difficulty in finding this place, and when 
 we did we had so many stairs to climb I thought 
 they would never end. Afterwards, tea in a Fleet 
 Street shop, where in discussing the events of the 
 past few weeks they sounded so much like the 
 conventional ending to a conventional story that 
 Mr. Seccombe agreed with me in thinking my 
 readers would consider them too strange to be 
 true. 
 
 But all I have narrated in this epilogue, as 
 all I have written in this book, is true. It is, 
 the whole of it, a true story, told as plainly and 
 simply as I could find English to tell it in. Here 
 I am sitting in a decent quiet house, with every 
 necessary provided for, with no worry, and the 
 prospect of a hopeful and useful future. 
 
 Mr. Seccombe had to deliver a lecture at an 
 institution near Chancery Lane. He invited me 
 to attend it, but I felt a burning desire to get 
 away by myself and think; besides, I was anxious
 
 EPILOGUE 289 
 
 to get away home as quickly as possible. On 
 parting, Mr. Wells had said 
 
 "Now I suppose you will enjoy yourself in 
 town to-night?" 
 
 "No," I answered; "I shall jolly well get out 
 of it as quick as I can." 
 
 I had become unfamiliar with London and its 
 ways after having been away from it so long, and 
 I found some difficulty in making my way back 
 to London Bridge. It was over twenty minutes 
 before I dared venture across Blackfriars Road: 
 there was a slight drizzle, the streets were wet, 
 and I was nervous. However, I managed it at 
 last, in time to catch one of the slowest of the 
 Brighton Company's slow trains. 
 
 I have since arranged with my landlord to 
 let me have a quieter house to work in. I have 
 hired another chair for a month, as I did not 
 wish to spend all my time over the fire, but I 
 should have been wiser had I kept the money in 
 my pocket; a fortnight of the month has elapsed 
 and I have had only one job with it. I am not 
 hiring any more bathchairs or paying any more 
 chair-rent if I can help it. "Enough," the 
 late E. F. Fay used to say, "is almost as good 
 as a feast." I have had enough bathchair work 
 to last me all this life, and if there is any truth 
 in the Pythagorean theory, through half-a-dozen 
 more. I have every reason to believe that 
 I never need know want again such as I have
 
 290 GEORGE MEEK 
 
 known in the past. Just as it seemed that I, and 
 those dependent upon me, were about to sink 
 once for all, there were hands stretched out will- 
 ing and anxious to help us; first those of my 
 unexpected, unthought-of uncle, then Mr. Wells 
 and my publishers. Just as the scene had reached 
 its very blackest and for us all to go to the work- 
 house seemed only a matter of days, ways opened 
 and all became light. 
 
 Time alone can prove whether or not I can 
 succeed as a writer of fiction or an essayist. I 
 am content to wait its verdict. But I do, in any 
 case, look forward with the pleasantest anticipa- 
 tions to our journey to the Sunny West, to the 
 ride through the glorious Rockies, and the home 
 awaiting us, where hopeless, abject poverty such 
 as surrounds us here is, as yet, unknown, to the 
 near kindred I have not seen for so many years 
 and whom I have longed to see. 
 
 I have not lost my licence as a bathchair-man 
 my nineteenth consecutive one though it is 
 no longer of much value to me, so that "Stock- 
 ings" has proved a false prophet. I am afraid 
 that if I suggested any means by which the lot of 
 the poor bathchair-man could be lightened, those 
 responsible would not listen to me. "No prophet 
 is without honour save in his own country." 
 Here, however, are a few suggestions. 
 
 Having limited the number of licensed chairs,
 
 EPILOGUE 291 
 
 and thus given them a monopoly value, the 
 Watch Committee have no right to license an 
 unlimited number of men. By doing so they 
 place them entirely in the power of the chair- 
 owners, who, though they know very well that 
 there is not half the money to be earned with 
 them that there used to be, and that the men 
 cannot possibly pay their rent and live, still 
 charge the same rent they did fourteen or fifteen 
 years ago. Supposing some of the men do drink: 
 I doubt if any self-respecting man could feel 
 himself in the clutches of some of these merciless 
 bloodsuckers without taking to drink or going 
 mad. 
 
 The chairs are necessary in a town like East- 
 bourne. They are a useful public service, and 
 the town would be less prosperous without them. 
 It is not to the interest of any community that 
 any of its useful workers should live unhealthy 
 lives, and men who live in continuous worry and 
 want cannot live healthy ones. Bathchairs will 
 always be needed till we get aerial ones; but 
 thank goodness I Ve done with them! 
 
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