I thought it best to see them ‘home,’ but they did not offer to tell me who they were; they did, however, tell me that the girl was a member of a well-known choir, and was only ‘home’ for a short holiday. I found out, though, what had brought the younger woman to the police court. She had taken home some finished work to a lady, who praised it and gave her more work to do. Unfortunately, she did not think of paying her, but more unfortunately still, she gave her a glass of spirits. Doubtless it was meant kindly, but it was disastrous; for the woman was weak for want of proper food, and in just that condition of body and mind when some food would have been most useful. Having to return home by tramcar, and the inside being full, she had to mount the outside. Just as she got to the top, and before she could get a seat, the car started, and overboard she went. The spirits had doubtless made her a bit giddy, but she told me that she would not have fallen but for the car starting too soon--in fact, before she was off the steps. I called again to see them. The girl had rejoined her choir; the wrinkled old lady sat in the almost empty house, thinking, thinking, everlastingly thinking of the past; the younger one with her bruised face and head still bandaged, sat at her machine. Once more I called, and the house was empty, and a bill was in the window. They were gone--and I never knew where. Neither did I ever learn whence they came or who they were; but this much I did gather, that the aunt’s means, as well as the fortune of the family, had been squandered by the husband of the younger woman.
So many gently-born come down into our slums, and compete with the poorest of the poor for a bare and miserable existence; but they mix not with the coarse and the lewd that abound around them; they seek no help, and never flaunt their poverty. Silently and in obscurity they go down to their doom of starvation. Sometimes they will come to the court and gasp their sorrow out to the magistrate, but not often, unless, indeed, it is some man or woman brought low by their vices. In such self-respect is dead, and they are ever ready to trade upon their past affluence, and are by no means ashamed to beg; but those who have been brought low by the wrong-doing of others present a pathetic spectacle.
