RfViftc of liriieirs. llS/06. 



The Book of the Month. 



195 



fore, and th^ roaring loom ut life in London is in 

 full swing before our eyes. But behind it all, 

 suffusing every chapter with its own atmosphere, is 

 the painful, insistent cry of the strugglers who are 

 in constant peril of losing their foothold in the 

 workaday world. 



In some respects it reminds one of that powerful 

 but painful story of '■ The Pathway of the Pioneer," 

 in which Dolf Wyllarde describes the struggles of 

 several young women to make a living in London 

 Town. But the tale is not so exclusively female. 

 ■.The central figure is a London girl, and it deals 

 chiefly with the story of the brave fight which 

 London girls make to gain and keep their footing in 

 the hustling, bustling crowd ; but the most sombre 

 side of that struggle is not obtruded, and Mr. 

 Whiteing barely alludes to the tragedy of sex. 



THE ODYSSEY OF PKUE'S .\DVENTURES. 

 Readers of " No. 5, John Street,'' do not need to 

 be told that Mr. Whiteing_ is a master in the de- 

 scription of the realities of London life. In this 

 story he docs not deal with the slum, He is con- 

 cerned almost entirely with 'the difficulties and vicis- 

 l situdes of a High School girl thrown, upon the world 

 to earn her living at the age of twenty, with only 

 thirty pounds' capital between her and destitution. 

 Her father, reputed a man of means, who had 

 brought her up in comfort, was dead. H^r mother 

 had just died when the story opens, and Prudence 

 Mervon — Prue for short — was left to earn her liv- 

 ing as best she could. Mr. Whiteing says: — 



Women are the characteristic figures of the unrest of 

 the time, and any one of thfem placed in its most trying' 

 circumstances— say a little workgirl trying to earn her 

 bread— mieht typify the wliole stiuiisle for lite in our 

 age. On the other hand, they will probably be the first 

 to find a remedy in the jumpy, synthetic fashion of their 

 sex. They may be expected to start illogically, yet to 

 get there while the men are only tliinking about it. With- 

 out them our i>erliai>s too ponilecous democrac.y will find 

 it impossible to ring in the new for the regeneration of 

 mankind. 



That passage explains bdth tli" title and the 

 choice of the heroine. Prue, we are told, had the 

 cocksureness of the High School girl, the curtness 

 of the )'oung woman of parts who was afraid of 

 nothing, with a fresh, healthv-minded face and wist- 

 ful eyes. She started as lady companion to her 

 wealthy Conservative Aunt Rdom, who was good, 

 deadlv quiet, and lapped to the chin in all the 

 proprieties of opinion and utterance. From this 

 life of dignified use and wont of prosperity, and of 

 the exclusion of all that was disagreeable from the 

 field of vision, Prue broke loose in .sheer despair, 

 and went into lodgings in l-Vatherstone Buildings, 

 Holborn, with her own furniture, and tried to find 

 work bv which to live. 



So begins the Odyssey of Pnie's adventures. She 

 experienced the chill misers- of an interview with 

 the secretary of the Genteel Employment Bureau, 

 and then betook herself to Pitman's .Shorthand 

 School to master the mysteries of stenographv. 

 Like all girls in her positiim, she felt the awful 



desolation of solitude in the midst of millions. She 

 abated its miseries by the companionship of her 

 dog. But as month after month passed without 

 finding work she began to get anxious. Her small 

 store of money was dwindling rapidly. Her ex- 

 periences during these days are w'ell described, with 

 a vivid setting of scenes in London streets. Mr. 

 Whiteing excels in catching the note of the street 

 life of London, with its huge two-decker trams glow- 

 ing with light, like steamers in the darkness, filled 

 as fast as hulks under a corn shoot ; its hurrying 

 crowds, which seem to rush about like a broken 

 army worried by cavalry — midge-like millions one 

 instant idly busy in a ray, the next back to the void 

 from which they came as from the womb of night. 



But although " it is always hard to be among the 

 imemployed, until you are penniless you are only in 

 the ornamental stage." Prue was nearing the penni- 

 less stage when she got an offer to do some dicta- 

 tion for a budding author. It was a failure on both 

 sides. He could not dictate, and she could not read 

 her notes. So the affair ended with a guinea and 

 apologies. Prue instantly spent her first guinea in 

 a new hat, and then, being conscience-stricken, gave 

 her hat to a crossing sweeper — rather an insane 

 thing to do, and one not in harmony with her 

 character. 



About this time she came upon a halfpenny 

 weekly mimeographed newspaper called T/ie Brand- 

 ing Iron ; a Journal of the Back Streets, edited by 

 George Leonard. It was given away through her 

 charwoman — Sarah, a capital character — and in it 

 Prue found to her horror a description of herself 

 ?nd her dog as G. Leonard had seen them on Lon- 

 don Bridge. He wrote : — 



Has anyl)ody in search of a sensation ever thought of 

 spotting the look of some of the out-o'-works on London 

 Bridge at closing time? I once saw a cyclist who had 

 lost control, fiyingr at full speed downhill, with a flint wall 

 at the bottom. Ttiere was death in the face— and he 

 found it. There's death, I swear, in some of these faces. 

 Oh. my God! 



There was only nine pounds left in the bank, but 

 she put by sixpence for a month's subscription. So 

 she became the first paying subscriber to The Brand- 

 ing Iron, and established relations with the unknown 

 editor which were to develop and fructify by-and- 

 bye. 



Prue's next step in the art and mystery of earning 

 money was to paint postcards — water-colours — los- 

 ing 2s. on the first week's work, and making is, 

 3id, for fifty-four hours' work in the second. She 

 threw it up, and began to stare starvation in the 

 face : — 



But think of having to win b.v toil every breath and 

 every beam, with darkness or death as the penalty of 

 failure. The idea was a new revelation of the sense of 

 pain, and it gave her a pang as of nausea. 



Yes: this was work— work which in the school days wag 

 only a mere dignified indulgence of spirits, with nothing 

 more serious at s'ake than a certificate. It came upon her 

 as another revelation of the infinite possibilities of Buffer- 

 ing, and showed the world as one great torture chamber, 

 witii endless perspectives of misery. 



