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IN SEARCH OF HOMES FOR OLD AGE

PENSIONERS.

'ME make un 'ome fer moi father? Why, Oi ain't got no 'ome fer messel'.'

There was not only surprise and indignation in the man's tone as he spoke, but an odd little touch of sarcasm. What is the world coming to? was the thought in his mind, evidently. What shall I be asked to do next?

He was a great hulking fellow of about forty, with 'loafer' written in unmistakable terms in every line in his face, every movement of his body. He looked as strong as an ox, but he trailed his feet as he walked; and as he could find nothing on which to sit, he clung to the wall for support.

A few days previously a very decent old man, in the workhouse perforce, his strength having failed him, had assured me with the ring of true conviction in his voice that, if he had a pension of 58. week, his son, beyond whom he had neither kith nor kin, would gladly make a home for him, he knew. And this loafer was his son ! I had found him in a sort of annex to a little beerhouse, where, as he explained to me, he was allowed to live and given snacks to eat in return for doing odd jobs.

'Wot could the old buffer be thinkin' about?' he continued, meditatively, looking at me the while with an injured air. "'E knows quite well Oi'm just a lone man, and yer see for yersel' 'ow Oi'm placed. Now wot could Oi do wiv 'im 'ere, or enywhere else fer the matter o' that? 'E'll niver git no more nor foive shillin' a week, yer say; and wot's foive shillin', I'd like ter know? Just yer tell 'im from me 'e's got ter stick where 'e is, and not go botherin'.' And with a surly nod he shuffled off.

He was to stick where he was, poor old man, and he was eating out his very heart in his eagerness to get away, even to his ne'er-dowell son!

I was on a home-hunting expedition at the time! I had a sort of roving commission from certain old workhouse inmates to seek out for them kinsfolk able and willing to provide them, when they

should cease to be paupers and become old age pensioners, with food, shelter, and care in return for their 5s. a week. This was the outcome of some inquiries I had been making, in a great London workhouse, for the purpose of discovering how many of the old people there had homes to which they could go, if they each had 58. to take with them; of discovering, too, incidentally, what sort of homes they were. The matter is one of importance now, it must be remembered; for, as the law stands, workhouse inmates who are above seventy and fairly respectable will have the right, on the first of next January, to leave the workhouse and claim old age pensions. This is a point on which there can be no doubt, for Section III. (1) of the Old Age Pension Law enacts that until the thirty-first of December 1910, the fact of having received poor relief shall be a bar to receiving an old-age pension, but only until that date, unless indeed Parliament otherwise determines.'

Thus, when January comes round, these poor old folk will be able to toddle forth, claim their pensions, and start life afresh for weal or for woe, if they choose. And choose they certainly will, for the most part, such of them at any rate as have the strength to toddle. Of that I had ample proof while making my inquiry in this workhouse. For during the many days I spent there I learnt to know 528 of the inmates, 252 old men and 276 old women, and I became on more or less confidential terms with many of them. And the great majority of them were, I found, quite determined to leave the House as soon as ever they could-if ever they couldhave pensions.

It was only with the fairly strong that I talked, of course; for whether they have pensions or not, the really infirm must always remain in institutions of some sort, whatever their wishes may be. Still, the whole 528 were above sixty-five, while many of them were far above seventy-they will practically all be seventy by Januaryand the strongest among them was but a weakling. For even at sixty-five the average working man or woman is nearing the end so far as physical strength goes. None the less, a good three-fourths of them were quite prepared to throw themselves into the struggle of life again. They would there and then have said good-bye to the workhouse gladly, had a pension officer appeared and offered them each a book of pension tickets. Yet, when I asked them where they would go, most of them seemed by no means sure; it was quite evident, indeed, that they had nowhere on earth to go to. Not but that some even of the most desolate began by giving me a glowing

account of the many friends and relatives they had who would be delighted to share homes with them. It was not until much unfounded evidence had been sifted, and many rosy-hued statements had been put to the test, that I realised what a terribly lonely set these poor old people really were.

Out of the 528 whose acquaintance I made, 171 had not a single relative among them, and 94 more were practically in the same position, as, if they had relatives, they had never heard of them. Then 221 had children, each one at least a son or a daughter; and 42, although childless, had brothers, sisters, nephews, nieces, or cousins. Thus, out of the whole 528, only 263 had relatives of any sort; and, in the case of 42 of them, the relatives were of the sort that do not count, as they cannot be forced to help. Practically only 221 of these old men and women really had relatives; and, as all the world knows, one may have relatives and yet have no home to go to. More than half of the 221 told me frankly from the first that if they went to their own people they would not be taken in. Only 59, indeed, seemed quite sure, when I asked them, that they each had someone, a son or a daughter, who would take them in and do for them in return for their five shillings a week. And 22 out of the 59 later confessed to me mournfully that they had made a mistake. Their sons or daughters when appealed to had declared that they could not-perhaps would not-give them house room. Only 37 out of 528 were sure they had homes to go to; and there was the chance, of course, that some even of these 37 were counting without their host. Many of the other 491 assured me, it is true, that although they had no relatives willing to receive them, even if they had each five shillings a week, they had many friends who would do so gladly; and that 'friends were a sight better to live with than relatives.' To this, however, I paid no heed; for it is hardly probable that anyone who is not a near relative will undertake to house, feed, clothe and tend an old man or woman for so small a sum as five shillings a week. Old folk give no end of trouble,' I am often told. Keeping them clean takes up all one's time, and five shilling a week ain't much to pay for what they eat and drink, and the damage they do. Besides, they must have somewhere to sleep.'

The 37 who were sure they had homes to go to were very sure indeed 16 of them were old men and 21 old women, and I verily believe that not one of the lot had a doubt in his or her mind on the subject. For the memories of the aged are capricious, and with VOL. XXVIII.-NO. 166, N.S.

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them the mere wish is more often than not the father to the thought. Not only would their own people take them in, but they would take them in gladly, they each in turn impressed upon me again and again. And when I ventured to suggest that they should allow me to go to see their own people, so as to make quite sure that there was no mistake in the matter, they all agreed cheerfully, evidently pleased that I should learn for myself how thoroughly their own people were to be relied upon. After much cudgelling of brains, each old man and each old woman gave me the address of the son, daughter or grandchild with whom he or she was going to live when an old age pensioner. This done, I started off on my home-hunting expedition, and came across the beerhouse hanger-on. He speedily put to flight any hopes I might ever have had that all these 37 old workhouse inmates would prove really to have, as they thought they had, homes to go to as soon as they had their pensions.

From the beerhouse I went to a little odds-and-ends shop kept by the married daughter of one of the old men in the workhouse. She seemed a decent, kindly woman, but she was evidently very poor: everything about her, even to the baby in her arms, nay to the very hair on her head, looked poverty-stricken. When I asked her if she could take her father in, she straightway began to cry, and said she only wished she could; for he had been a good father to her, and she hated his being where he was. But her husband would not hear of it, she knew. He had let her take in a sister who had epileptic fits, and that was quite enough, he thought. For they had more children than they knew what to do with, and were sorely pressed for room.

'We couldn't take him in,' she kept saying regretfully; we couldn't, indeed. We are just packed as it is. Why, we haven't

even an attic.'

My next visit was to a very different sort of woman; there was nothing poverty-stricken about her; on the contrary, she seemed eminently prosperous. When I explained that I had come to see her on behalf of her mother, who was in the workhouse, she looked at me in scornful amazement, and told me indignantly that the old woman in question was no mother of hers!

'You don't suppose that I should allow my mother to be in the workhouse, do you?' she inquired loftily. She admitted that her name was the same as that of the old woman's daughter, and that she lived where the old woman had told me her daughter lived.

She even acknowledged that it was curious when I pointed out to her that the likeness between herself and the old woman was striking. None the less she stood by her guns stoutly. The old woman was not her mother, she declared, again and again. She was swearing by all her gods, indeed, when I left her, that she had never before even heard the old woman's name.

A few days later I came across another case of much the same kind of mistaken identity. In this case, however, it was the daughter-in-law, not the daughter, who assured me that I had come to the wrong house. She, too, seemed prosperous. She lived in a most depressingly respectable district, and was arrayed in white muslin when I called on her. It was not so much that she was indignant as that her feelings were hurt, when she heard why I had

come.

'My husband's mother in the workhouse!' she cried, with an hysterical ring in her voice. What do you mean? In the workhouse with all those low, vulgar creatures that drink? No, indeed, she is not! How could you make such a mistake? My husband so well connected, too, and so particular!'

Never did I hear such an avalanche of protestations and asseverations as she showered down on me to prove that her motherin-law could not, by any chance, be where I had ventured to say I had seen her. And her voice became shriller and shriller as on she went, and she trembled from head to foot. At length, in the hope of soothing her, I told her what a very nice old lady she was who was in the workhouse; how she was one of whom no one could be ashamed.

'A nice old lady, indeed!' she shrieked, evidently quite wild with anger. 'That shows how little you know her. She's nothing but a lying old good-for-nothing.'

Then the cat was out of the bag: I had come to the right house after all; but it was a house where the door was barred inexorably against its owner's mother. She and her daughter-in-law had tried living together, it seemed, and it had proved a failure. that deceitful old wretch enters this house again, I leave it. That my husband knows.' These were the last words I heard when I

went on my way.

If ever

On another occasion I really thought that I had come to the wrong house. An old man, who, I was sure, had been a butler, although he might have been a peer, had given me the address of his wife and daughter; and when I went there I found that it was quite a