THE PEOPLE OF THE ABYSS
by Jack London
The chief priests and rulers cry:-
"O Lord and Master, not ours the guilt,
We build but as our fathers built;
Behold thine images how they stand
Sovereign and sole through all our land.
"Our task is hard--with sword and flame,
To hold thine earth forever the same,
And with sharp crooks of steel to keep,
Still as thou leftest them, thy sheep."
Then Christ sought out an artisan,
A low-browed, stunted, haggard man,
And a motherless girl whose fingers thin
Crushed from her faintly want and sin.
These set he in the midst of them,
And as they drew back their garment hem
For fear of defilement, "Lo, here," said he,
"The images ye have made of me."
JAMES RUSSELL LOWELL.
PREFACE
The experiences related in this volume fell to me in the summer of
1902. I went down into the under-world of London with an attitude
of mind which I may best liken to that of the explorer. I was open
to be convinced by the evidence of my eyes, rather than by the
teachings of those who had not seen, or by the words of those who
had seen and gone before. Further, I took with me certain simple
criteria with which to measure the life of the under-world. That
which made for more life, for physical and spiritual health, was
good; that which made for less life, which hurt, and dwarfed, and
distorted life, was bad.
It will be readily apparent to the reader that I saw much that was
bad. Yet it must not be forgotten that the time of which I write
was considered "good times" in England. The starvation and lack of
shelter I encountered constituted a chronic condition of misery
which is never wiped out, even in the periods of greatest
prosperity.
Following the summer in question came a hard winter. Great numbers
of the unemployed formed into processions, as many as a dozen at a
time, and daily marched through the streets of London crying for
bread. Mr. Justin McCarthy, writing in the month of January 1903,
to the New York Independent, briefly epitomises the situation as
follows:-
"The workhouses have no space left in which to pack the starving
crowds who are craving every day and night at their doors for food
and shelter. All the charitable institutions have exhausted their
means in trying to raise supplies of food for the famishing
residents of the garrets and cellars of London lanes and alleys.
The quarters of the Salvation Army in various parts of London are
nightly besieged by hosts of the unemployed and the hungry for whom
neither shelter nor the means of sustenance can be provided."
It has been urged that the criticism I have passed on things as they
are in England is too pessimistic. I must say, in extenuation, that
of optimists I am the most optimistic. But I measure manhood less
by political aggregations than by individuals. Society grows, while
political machines rack to pieces and become "scrap." For the
English, so far as manhood and womanhood and health and happiness
go, I see a broad and smiling future. But for a great deal of the
political machinery, which at present mismanages for them, I see
nothing else than the scrap heap.
JACK LONDON.
PIEDMONT, CALIFORNIA.
CHAPTER I--THE DESCENT
"But you can't do it, you know," friends said, to whom I applied for
assistance in the matter of sinking myself down into the East End of
London. "You had better see the police for a guide," they added, on
second thought, painfully endeavouring to adjust themselves to the
psychological processes of a madman who had come to them with better
credentials than brains.
"But I don't want to see the police," I protested. "What I wish to
do is to go down into the East End and see things for myself. I
wish to know how those people are living there, and why they are
living there, and what they are living for. In short, I am going to
live there myself."
"You don't want to LIVE down there!" everybody said, with
disapprobation writ large upon their faces. "Why, it is said there
are places where a man's life isn't worth tu'pence."
"The very places I wish to see," I broke in.
"But you can't, you know," was the unfailing rejoinder.
"Which is not what I came to see you about," I answered brusquely,
somewhat nettled by their incomprehension. "I am a stranger here,
and I want you to tell me what you know of the East End, in order
that I may have something to start on."
"But we know nothing of the East End. It is over there, somewhere."
And they waved their hands vaguely in the direction where the sun on
rare occasions may be seen to rise.
"Then I shall go to Cook's," I announced.
"Oh yes," they said, with relief. "Cook's will be sure to know."
But O Cook, O Thomas Cook & Son, path-finders and trail-clearers,
living sign-posts to all the world, and bestowers of first aid to
bewildered travellers--unhesitatingly and instantly, with ease and
celerity, could you send me to Darkest Africa or Innermost Thibet,
but to the East End of London, barely a stone's throw distant from
Ludgate Circus, you know not the way!
"You can't do it, you know," said the human emporium of routes and
fares at Cook's Cheapside branch. "It is so--hem--so unusual."
"Consult the police," he concluded authoritatively, when I had
persisted. "We are not accustomed to taking travellers to the East
End; we receive no call to take them there, and we know nothing
whatsoever about the place at all."
"Never mind that," I interposed, to save myself from being swept out
of the office by his flood of negations. "Here's something you can
do for me. I wish you to understand in advance what I intend doing,
so that in case of trouble you may be able to identify me."
"Ah, I see! should you be murdered, we would be in position to
identify the corpse."
He said it so cheerfully and cold-bloodedly that on the instant I
saw my stark and mutilated cadaver stretched upon a slab where cool
waters trickle ceaselessly, and him I saw bending over and sadly and
patiently identifying it as the body of the insane American who
WOULD see the East End.
"No, no," I answered; "merely to identify me in case I get into a
scrape with the 'bobbies.'" This last I said with a thrill; truly,
I was gripping hold of the vernacular.
"That," he said, "is a matter for the consideration of the Chief
Office."
"It is so unprecedented, you know," he added apologetically.
The man at the Chief Office hemmed and hawed. "We make it a rule,"
he explained, "to give no information concerning our clients."
"But in this case," I urged, "it is the client who requests you to
give the information concerning himself."
Again he hemmed and hawed.
"Of course," I hastily anticipated, "I know it is unprecedented,
but--"
"As I was about to remark," he went on steadily, "it is
unprecedented, and I don't think we can do anything for you."
However, I departed with the address of a detective who lived in the
East End, and took my way to the American consul-general. And here,
at last, I found a man with whom I could "do business." There was
no hemming and hawing, no lifted brows, open incredulity, or blank
amazement. In one minute I explained myself and my project, which
he accepted as a matter of course. In the second minute he asked my
age, height, and weight, and looked me over. And in the third
minute, as we shook hands at parting, he said: "All right, Jack.
I'll remember you and keep track."
I breathed a sigh of relief. Having burnt my ships behind me, I was
now free to plunge into that human wilderness of which nobody seemed
to know anything. But at once I encountered a new difficulty in the
shape of my cabby, a grey-whiskered and eminently decorous personage
who had imperturbably driven me for several hours about the "City."
"Drive me down to the East End," I ordered, taking my seat.
"Where, sir?" he demanded with frank surprise.
"To the East End, anywhere. Go on."
The hansom pursued an aimless way for several minutes, then came to
a puzzled stop. The aperture above my head was uncovered, and the
cabman peered down perplexedly at me.
"I say," he said, "wot plyce yer wanter go?"
"East End," I repeated. "Nowhere in particular. Just drive me
around anywhere."
"But wot's the haddress, sir?"
"See here!" I thundered. "Drive me down to the East End, and at
once!"
It was evident that he did not understand, but he withdrew his head,
and grumblingly started his horse.
Nowhere in the streets of London may one escape the sight of abject
poverty, while five minutes' walk from almost any point will bring
one to a slum; but the region my hansom was now penetrating was one
unending slum. The streets were filled with a new and different
race of people, short of stature, and of wretched or beer-sodden
appearance. We rolled along through miles of bricks and squalor,
and from each cross street and alley flashed long vistas of bricks
and misery. Here and there lurched a drunken man or woman, and the
air was obscene with sounds of jangling and squabbling. At a
market, tottery old men and women were searching in the garbage
thrown in the mud for rotten potatoes, beans, and vegetables, while
little children clustered like flies around a festering mass of
fruit, thrusting their arms to the shoulders into the liquid
corruption, and drawing forth morsels but partially decayed, which
they devoured on the spot.
Not a hansom did I meet with in all my drive, while mine was like an
apparition from another and better world, the way the children ran
after it and alongside. And as far as I could see were the solid
walls of brick, the slimy pavements, and the screaming streets; and
for the first time in my life the fear of the crowd smote me. It
was like the fear of the sea; and the miserable multitudes, street
upon street, seemed so many waves of a vast and malodorous sea,
lapping about me and threatening to well up and over me.
"Stepney, sir; Stepney Station," the cabby called down.
I looked about. It was really a railroad station, and he had driven
desperately to it as the one familiar spot he had ever heard of in
all that wilderness.
"Well," I said.
He spluttered unintelligibly, shook his head, and looked very
miserable. "I'm a strynger 'ere," he managed to articulate. "An'
if yer don't want Stepney Station, I'm blessed if I know wotcher do
want."
"I'll tell you what I want," I said. "You drive along and keep your
eye out for a shop where old clothes are sold. Now, when you see
such a shop, drive right on till you turn the corner, then stop and
let me out."
I could see that he was growing dubious of his fare, but not long
afterwards he pulled up to the curb and informed me that an old-
clothes shop was to be found a bit of the way back.
"Won'tcher py me?" he pleaded. "There's seven an' six owin' me."
"Yes," I laughed, "and it would be the last I'd see of you."
"Lord lumme, but it'll be the last I see of you if yer don't py me,"
he retorted.
But a crowd of ragged onlookers had already gathered around the cab,
and I laughed again and walked back to the old-clothes shop.
Here the chief difficulty was in making the shopman understand that
I really and truly wanted old clothes. But after fruitless attempts
to press upon me new and impossible coats and trousers, he began to
bring to light heaps of old ones, looking mysterious the while and
hinting darkly. This he did with the palpable intention of letting
me know that he had "piped my lay," in order to bulldose me, through
fear of exposure, into paying heavily for my purchases. A man in
trouble, or a high-class criminal from across the water, was what he
took my measure for--in either case, a person anxious to avoid the
police.
But I disputed with him over the outrageous difference between
prices and values, till I quite disabused him of the notion, and he
settled down to drive a hard bargain with a hard customer. In the
end I selected a pair of stout though well-worn trousers, a frayed
jacket with one remaining button, a pair of brogans which had
plainly seen service where coal was shovelled, a thin leather belt,
and a very dirty cloth cap. My underclothing and socks, however,
were new and warm, but of the sort that any American waif, down in
his luck, could acquire in the ordinary course of events.
"I must sy yer a sharp 'un," he said, with counterfeit admiration,
as I handed over the ten shillings finally agreed upon for the
outfit. "Blimey, if you ain't ben up an' down Petticut Lane afore
now. Yer trouseys is wuth five bob to hany man, an' a docker 'ud
give two an' six for the shoes, to sy nothin' of the coat an' cap
an' new stoker's singlet an' hother things."
"How much will you give me for them?" I demanded suddenly. "I paid
you ten bob for the lot, and I'll sell them back to you, right now,
for eight! Come, it's a go!"
But he grinned and shook his head, and though I had made a good
bargain, I was unpleasantly aware that he had made a better one.
I found the cabby and a policeman with their heads together, but the
latter, after looking me over sharply, and particularly scrutinizing
the bundle under my arm, turned away and left the cabby to wax
mutinous by himself. And not a step would he budge till I paid him
the seven shillings and sixpence owing him. Whereupon he was
willing to drive me to the ends of the earth, apologising profusely
for his insistence, and explaining that one ran across queer
customers in London Town.
But he drove me only to Highbury Vale, in North London, where my
luggage was waiting for me. Here, next day, I took off my shoes
(not without regret for their lightness and comfort), and my soft,
grey travelling suit, and, in fact, all my clothing; and proceeded
to array myself in the clothes of the other and unimaginable men,
who must have been indeed unfortunate to have had to part with such
rags for the pitiable sums obtainable from a dealer.
Inside my stoker's singlet, in the armpit, I sewed a gold sovereign
(an emergency sum certainly of modest proportions); and inside my
stoker's singlet I put myself. And then I sat down and moralised
upon the fair years and fat, which had made my skin soft and brought
the nerves close to the surface; for the singlet was rough and raspy
as a hair shirt, and I am confident that the most rigorous of
ascetics suffer no more than I did in the ensuing twenty-four hours.
The remainder of my costume was fairly easy to put on, though the
brogans, or brogues, were quite a problem. As stiff and hard as if
made of wood, it was only after a prolonged pounding of the uppers
with my fists that I was able to get my feet into them at all.
Then, with a few shillings, a knife, a handkerchief, and some brown
papers and flake tobacco stowed away in my pockets, I thumped down
the stairs and said good-bye to my foreboding friends. As I paused
out of the door, the "help," a comely middle-aged woman, could not
conquer a grin that twisted her lips and separated them till the
throat, out of involuntary sympathy, made the uncouth animal noises
we are wont to designate as "laughter."
No sooner was I out on the streets than I was impressed by the
difference in status effected by my clothes. All servility vanished
from the demeanour of the common people with whom I came in contact.
Presto! in the twinkling of an eye, so to say, I had become one of
them. My frayed and out-at-elbows jacket was the badge and
advertisement of my class, which was their class. It made me of
like kind, and in place of the fawning and too respectful attention
I had hitherto received, I now shared with them a comradeship. The
man in corduroy and dirty neckerchief no longer addressed me as
"sir" or "governor." It was "mate" now--and a fine and hearty word,
with a tingle to it, and a warmth and gladness, which the other term
does not possess. Governor! It smacks of mastery, and power, and
high authority--the tribute of the man who is under to the man on
top, delivered in the hope that he will let up a bit and ease his
weight, which is another way of saying that it is an appeal for
alms.
This brings me to a delight I experienced in my rags and tatters
which is denied the average American abroad. The European traveller
from the States, who is not a Croesus, speedily finds himself
reduced to a chronic state of self-conscious sordidness by the
hordes of cringing robbers who clutter his steps from dawn till
dark, and deplete his pocket-book in a way that puts compound
interest to the blush.
In my rags and tatters I escaped the pestilence of tipping, and
encountered men on a basis of equality. Nay, before the day was out
I turned the tables, and said, most gratefully, "Thank you, sir," to
a gentleman whose horse I held, and who dropped a penny into my
eager palm
Other changes I discovered were wrought in my condition by my new
garb. In crossing crowded thoroughfares I found I had to be, if
anything, more lively in avoiding vehicles, and it was strikingly
impressed upon me that my life had cheapened in direct ratio with my
clothes. When before I inquired the way of a policeman, I was
usually asked, "Bus or 'ansom, sir?" But now the query became,
"Walk or ride?" Also, at the railway stations, a third-class ticket
was now shoved out to me as a matter of course.
But there was compensation for it all. For the first time I met the
English lower classes face to face, and knew them for what they
were. When loungers and workmen, at street corners and in public-
houses, talked with me, they talked as one man to another, and they
talked as natural men should talk, without the least idea of getting
anything out of me for what they talked or the way they talked.
And when at last I made into the East End, I was gratified to find
that the fear of the crowd no longer haunted me. I had become a
part of it. The vast and malodorous sea had welled up and over me,
or I had slipped gently into it, and there was nothing fearsome
about it--with the one exception of the stoker's singlet.
