Going down the street to the house indicated, I found myself in a moderate-sized kitchen such as you find in a house of the olden times, low but fairly large. A sink was partitioned off in the corner. A man was cutting up wood, and one or two women and children were there. They were talking about a man who had gone away deserting his wife and children. One asked if I had not my man with me. I said "No." They had seen my "bobby" friend pass. They said a man had passed. I said "I thought he was a bobby." They said, "Right you are," and appeared to accept me. I got a tea-pot and made myself some tea, and cut (with a borrowed knife) some bread and butter. Thus making myself at home I could observe the place and company. It was fairly clean for such places; the company, both in appearance and language was low, and I was glad I was not going to stay the night. It would probably have proved much the same as the lodging-house in which I spent the second night when on five days' tramp.[135] Having used my eyes well, after about half an hour, I said I was going out, and left not to return, joining my policeman friend. He told me this was the only other accommodation in all that large city for women. He added that there was, however, a charitable home or shelter, and if they found friendless women on the streets at night they usually sent them there.
It was the same old story, absence of decent sanitary self-respecting accommodation for women. No "charity" can replace this. Rescue homes pick up those who _have fallen_.
The policeman told me much about the general condition of the city. He said a municipal lodging-house was much wanted; that there was no accommodation for travellers save common lodgings, often dreadfully crowded and unsanitary. "I will let you have a look round one," he said. "I will introduce you, and you must have a good look to see if your 'man' is there!"
Accordingly he took me into an ordinary dwelling house at the corner of a street. A boarded-off sanded passage led to a small room hardly as large as in an ordinary dwelling house. The wooden seating round the walls was filled with men, most smoking. They stood up and stared at me and I at them. "You can't see your man," said the bobby. "No, he isn't here," I replied. So I followed him elsewhere. He told me all the lodging-houses were of this character, and insufficient in number. A good lodging-house would be a boon, for in the holes and corners and narrow lanes where those common lodging-houses are found, police discipline is very difficult. By this time it was about 9.30 P.M., and I returned to my friends for ablution and a change of raiment, able to give point from personal experience to my remarks on the following day.