---
title: "Down and Out in Paris and London"
author: "George Orwell"
languages: [en]
shelf: "Literature"
section: 29 of 38
url: https://scriptura.si/works/orwell-down-and-out-fp20180314/29/
cite: "George Orwell, Down and Out in Paris and London, section 29. Scriptura (scriptura.si), https://scriptura.si/works/orwell-down-and-out-fp20180314/29/"
---

# Down and Out in Paris and London

*George Orwell*

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> Title: Down and Out in Paris and London
Date of first publication: 1933
Author: George Orwell (1903-1950)
Date first posted: Mar. 14, 2018
Date last updated: Mar. 14, 2018
Faded Page eBook #20180314

> This eBook was produced by: Delphine Lettau, Howard Ross
& the online Distributed Proofreaders Canada team at http://www.pgdpcanada.net

> GEORGE ORWELL

> _Down and Out_
    _in Paris and London_

> O scathful harm, condicion of poverte!
       CHAUCER

> PENGUIN BOOKS

> First published by Victor Gollancz 1933

> Copyright 1933 by Eric Blair

> [The end of _Down and Out in Paris and London_ by George Orwell]

## 29. Chapter XXIX

Source: https://scriptura.si/works/orwell-down-and-out-fp20180314/29/ · cite a paragraph as https://scriptura.si/works/orwell-down-and-out-fp20180314/29/#p-N

[¶0] On the way to Edbury I told Paddy that I had a friend from whom I could
be sure of getting money, and suggested going straight into London
rather than face another night in the spike. But Paddy had not been in
Edbury spike recently, and, tramp-like, he would not waste a night's
free lodging. We arranged to go into London the next morning. I had only
a halfpenny, but Paddy had two shillings, which would get us a bed each
and a few cups of tea.

[¶1] The Edbury spike did not differ much from the one at Romton. The worst
feature was that all tobacco was confiscated at the gate, and we were
warned that any man caught smoking would be turned out at once. Under
the Vagrancy Act tramps can be prosecuted for smoking in the spike—in
fact, they can be prosecuted for almost anything; but the authorities
generally save the trouble of a prosecution by turning disobedient men
out of doors. There was no work to do, and the cells were fairly
comfortable. We slept two in a cell, 'one up, one down'—that is, one on
a wooden shelf and one on the floor, with straw palliasses and plenty of
blankets, dirty but not verminous. The food was the same as at Romton,
except that we had tea instead of cocoa. One could get extra tea in the
morning, as the Tramp Major was selling it at a halfpenny a mug,
illicitly no doubt. We were each given a hunk of bread and cheese to
take away for our midday meal.

[¶2] When we got into London we had eight hours to kill before the
lodging-houses opened. It is curious how one does not notice things. I
had been in London innumerable times, and yet till that day I had never
noticed one of the worst things about London—the fact that it costs
money even to sit down. In Paris, if you had no money and could not find
a public bench, you would sit on the pavement. Heaven knows what sitting
on the pavement would lead to in London—prison, probably. By four we
had stood five hours, and our feet seemed red hot from the hardness of
the stones. We were hungry, having eaten our ration as soon as we left
the spike, and I was out of tobacco—it mattered less to Paddy, who
picked up cigarette ends. We tried two churches and found them locked.
Then we tried a public library, but there were no seats in it. As a last
hope Paddy suggested trying a Rowton House; by the rules they would not
let us in before seven, but we might slip in unnoticed. We walked up to
the magnificent doorway (the Rowton Houses really are magnificent) and
very casually, trying to look like regular lodgers, began to stroll in.
Instantly a man lounging in the doorway, a sharp-faced fellow, evidently
in some position of authority, barred the way.

[¶3] 'You men sleep 'ere last night?'

[¶4] 'No.'

[¶5] 'Then f— off.'

[¶6] We obeyed, and stood two more hours on the street corner. It was
unpleasant, but it taught me not to use the expression 'street corner
loafer', so I gained something from it.

[¶7] At six we went to a Salvation Army shelter. We could not book beds till
eight and it was not certain that there would be any vacant, but an
official, who called us 'Brother', let us in on condition that we paid
for two cups of tea. The main hall of the shelter was a great
whitewashed barn of a place, oppressively clean and bare, with no fires.
Two hundred decentish, rather subdued-looking people were sitting packed
on long wooden benches. One or two officers in uniform prowled up and
down. On the wall were pictures of General Booth, and notices
prohibiting cooking, drinking, spitting, swearing, quarrelling and
gambling. As a specimen of these notices, here is one that I copied word
for word:

[¶8] Any man found gambling or playing cards will be expelled and
    will not be admitted under any circumstances.

[¶9] A reward will be given for information leading to the discovery
    of such persons.

[¶10] The officers in charge appeal to all lodgers to assist them in
    keeping this hostel free from the DETESTABLE EVIL OF GAMBLING.

[¶11] 'Gambling or playing cards' is a delightful phrase.

[¶12] To my eye these Salvation Army shelters, though clean, are far drearier
than the worst of the common lodging-houses. There is such a
hopelessness about some of the people there—decent, broken-down types
who have pawned their collars but are still trying for office jobs.
Coming to a Salvation Army shelter, where it is at least clean, is their
last clutch at respectability. At the next table to me were two
foreigners, dressed in rags but manifestly gentlemen. They were playing
chess verbally, not even writing down the moves. One of them was blind,
and I heard them say that they had been saving up for a long time to buy
a board, price half a crown, but could never manage it. Here and there
were clerks out of work, pallid and moody. Among a group of them a tall,
thin, deadly pale young man was talking excitedly. He thumped his fist
on the table and boasted in a strange, feverish style. When the officers
were out of hearing he broke out into startling blasphemies:

[¶13] 'I tell you what, boys, I'm going to get that job tomorrow. I'm not one
of your bloody down-on-the-knee brigade; I can look after myself. Look
at that — notice there! "The Lord will provide!" A bloody lot He's ever
provided me with. You don't catch me trusting to the—Lord. You leave it
to me, boys. _I'm going to get that job_,' etc. etc.

[¶14] I watched him, struck by the wild, agitated way in which he talked; he
seemed hysterical, or perhaps a little drunk. An hour later I went into
a small room, apart from the main hall, which was intended for reading.
It had no books or papers in it, so few of the lodgers went there. As I
opened the door I saw the young clerk in there all alone; he was on his
knees, _praying_. Before I shut the door again I had time to see his
face, and it looked agonized. Quite suddenly I realized, from the
expression of his face, that he was starving.

[¶15] The charge for beds was eightpence each. Paddy and I had fivepence left,
and we spent it at the 'bar', where food was cheap, though not so cheap
as in some common lodging-houses. The tea appeared to be made with tea
_dust_, which I fancy had been given to the Salvation Army in charity,
though they sold it at three-halfpence a cup. It was foul stuff. At ten
o'clock an officer marched round the hall blowing a whistle. Immediately
everyone stood up.

[¶16] 'What's this for?' I said to Paddy, astonished.

[¶17] 'Dat means you has to go off to bed. An' you has to look sharp about it,
too.'

[¶18] Obediently as sheep, the whole two hundred men trooped off to bed, under
the command of the officers.

[¶19] The dormitory was a great attic like a barrack room, with sixty or
seventy beds in it. They were clean and tolerably comfortable, but very
narrow and very close together, so that one breathed straight into one's
neighbour's face. Two officers slept in the room, to see that there was
no smoking and no talking after lights-out. Paddy and I had scarcely a
wink of sleep, for there was a man near us who had some nervous trouble,
shell-shock perhaps, which made him cry out 'Pip!' at irregular
intervals. It was a loud, startling noise, something like the toot of a
small motor-horn. You never knew when it was coming, and it was a sure
preventer of sleep. It appeared that Pip, as the others called him,
slept regularly in the shelter, and he must have kept ten or twenty
people awake every night. He was an example of the kind of thing that
prevents one from ever getting enough sleep when men are herded as they
are in these lodging-houses.

[¶20] At seven another whistle blew, and the officers went round shaking those
who did not get up at once. Since then I have slept in a number of
Salvation Army shelters, and found that, though the different houses
vary a little, this semi-military discipline is the same in all of them.
They are certainly cheap, but they are too like workhouses for my taste.
In some of them there is even a compulsory religious service once or
twice a week, which the lodgers must attend or leave the house. The fact
is that the Salvation Army are so in the habit of thinking themselves a
charitable body that they cannot even run a lodging-house without making
it stink of charity.

[¶21] At ten I went to B.'s office and asked him to lend me a pound. He gave
me two pounds and told me to come again when necessary, so that Paddy
and I were free of money troubles for a week at least. We loitered the
day in Trafalgar Square, looking for a friend of Paddy's who never
turned up, and at night went to a lodging-house in a back alley near the
Strand. The charge was elevenpence, but it was a dark, evil-smelling
place, and a notorious haunt of the 'nancy boys'. Downstairs, in the
murky kitchen, three ambiguous-looking youths in smartish blue suits
were sitting on a bench apart, ignored by the other lodgers. I suppose
they were 'nancy boys'. They looked the same type as the apache boys one
sees in Paris, except that they wore no side-whiskers. In front of the
fire a fully-dressed man and a stark-naked man were bargaining. They
were newspaper sellers. The dressed man was selling his clothes to the
naked man. He said: ''Ere y'are, the best rig-out you ever 'ad. A
tosheroon [half a crown] for the coat, two 'ogs for the trousers, one
and a tanner for the boots, and a 'og for the cap and scarf. That's
seven bob.'

[¶22] 'You got a 'ope! I'll give yer one and a tanner for the coat, a 'og for
the trousers, and two 'ogs for the rest. That's four and a tanner.'

[¶23] 'Take the 'ole lot for five and a tanner, chum.'

[¶24] 'Right y'are, off with 'em. I got to get out to sell my late edition.'

[¶25] The clothed man stripped, and in three minutes their positions were
reversed; the naked man dressed, and the other kilted with a sheet of
the _Daily Mail_.

[¶26] The dormitory was dark and close, with fifteen beds in it. There was a
horrible hot reek of urine, so beastly that at first one tried to
breathe in small shallow puffs, not filling one's lungs to the bottom.
As I lay down in bed a man loomed out of the darkness, leant over me and
began babbling in an educated, half-drunken voice:

[¶27] 'An old public school boy, what? [He had heard me say something to
Paddy.] Don't meet many of the old school here. I am an old Etonian. You
know — twenty years hence this weather and all that.' He began to
quaver out the Eton boating-song, not untunefully:

[¶28] Jolly boating weather,
    And a hay harvest—

[¶29] 'Stop that — noise!' shouted several lodgers.

[¶30] 'Low types,' said the old Etonian, 'very low types. Funny sort of place
for you and me, eh? Do you know what my friends say to me? They say,
"M—, you are past redemption." Quite true, I _am_ past redemption. I've
come down in the world; not like these —s here, who couldn't come down
if they tried. We chaps who have come down ought to hang together a bit.
Youth will be still in our faces—you know. May I offer you a drink?'

[¶31] He produced a bottle of cherry brandy, and at the same moment lost his
balance and fell heavily across my legs. Paddy, who was undressing,
pulled him upright.

[¶32] 'Get back to yer bed, you silly ole c—!'

[¶33] The old Etonian walked unsteadily to his bed and crawled under the
sheets with all his clothes on, even his boots. Several times in the
night I heard him murmuring, 'M—, you are past redemption,' as though
the phrase appealed to him. In the morning he was lying asleep fully
dressed, with the bottle clasped in his arms. He was a man of about
fifty, with a refined, worn face, and, curiously enough, quite
fashionably dressed. It was queer to see his good patent-leather shoes
sticking out of that filthy bed. It occurred to me, too, that the cherry
brandy must have cost the equivalent of a fortnight's lodging, so he
could not have been seriously hard up. Perhaps he frequented common
lodging-houses in search of the 'nancy boys'.

[¶34] The beds were not more than two feet apart. About midnight I woke up to
find that the man next to me was trying to steal the money from beneath
my pillow. He was pretending to be asleep while he did it, sliding his
hand under the pillow as gently as a rat. In the morning I saw that he
was a hunchback, with long, apelike arms. I told Paddy about the
attempted theft. He laughed and said:

[¶35] 'Christ! You got to get used to dat. Dese lodgin'-houses is full o'
thieves. In some houses dere's nothin' safe but to sleep wid all yer
clo'es on. I seen 'em steal a wooden leg off of a cripple before now.
Once I see a man—fourteen stone man he was—come into a lodgin'-house
wid four pound ten. He puts it under his mattress. "Now," he says, "any
— dat touches dat money does it over my body," he says. But dey done
him all de same. In de mornin' he woke up on de floor. Four fellers had
took his mattress by de corners an' lifted him off as light as a
feather. He never saw his four pound ten again.'