From Workhouse to Westminster Part 3

"'Oliver Twist,' came one little chap's answer.

"'Why?'

"'Because he asked for more.'"

This early reading of d.i.c.kens may have helped to develop his own quaint, rich humour. Will Crooks often reminds one of Charles d.i.c.kens. He knows the Londoner of to-day, his oddities, whimsicalities, his trials, humours, and sorrows, as thoroughly as d.i.c.kens knew the Londoner of fifty years ago. Many a time I have journeyed with him down to his home in East London, after he had finished a hard day's work in Parliament or on the London County Council, possibly having been defeated on some public question in a way that would make many men despair; and yet how easily he has put aside all the worries and work, and made the journey delightful by his unfailing fund of c.o.c.kney anecdotes. He is one of the rare story-tellers you meet with in a lifetime. The charm, too, of all his stories is that they never relate to what he has read, but always to what he has heard or observed himself.

Some unknown friend at Yarmouth, who doubtless had heard him speak, seems to have been impressed by this ready way he has of taking his ill.u.s.trations from the common things around him. Under the initials A. H. S. he sent the following "Limerick" to _London Opinion_:--

We smile when he's funny, or witty, We yawn when he's wise: more's the pity, For this best of the "Crooks"

Draws from life, not from books, When he pleads for the people or city.

After d.i.c.kens the lad discovered Scott. "It was an event in my life when, in an old Scotch magazine, I read a fascinating criticism of 'Ivanhoe.' Nothing would satisfy me until I had got the book; and then Scott took a front place among my favourite authors.

"I was in my teens then, reading everything I could lay hands on. I used to follow closely public events in the newspapers. Not long ago I met a man in a car with whom I remonstrated for some rude behaviour to the pa.s.sengers. He looked at me in amazement when I called him by his name.

"'Why,' he said, 'you must be that boy Will Crooks I knew long ago. Do you know what I remember about you? I can see you now tossing your ap.r.o.n off in the dinner-hour and squatting down in the workshop with a paper in your hand.'"

Crooks was still an apprentice when, as he describes it, the great literary event of his life occurred.

"On my way home from work one Sat.u.r.day afternoon I was lucky enough to pick up Homer's 'Iliad' for twopence at an old bookstall. After dinner I took it upstairs--we were able to afford an upstairs room by that time--and read it lying on the bed. What a revelation it was to me!

Pictures of romance and beauty I had never dreamed of suddenly opened up before my eyes. I was transported from the East End to an enchanted land. It was a rare luxury to a working lad like me just home from work to find myself suddenly among the heroes and nymphs and G.o.ds of ancient Greece."

The lad's imagination was also fired by "The Pilgrim's Progress."

"I often think of that splendid pa.s.sage describing the pa.s.sing over the river and the entry into Heaven of Christian and Faithful. I can sympathise with Arnold of Rugby when he said, 'I never dare trust myself to read that pa.s.sage aloud.'"

While in the blacksmith's shop he learnt many portions of Shakespeare, with a decided preference for Hamlet. Often in the little forge the men would say, "Give us a bit of Shakespeare, Will." The lad, nothing loath, would declaim before them, more often than not in a mock heroic strain that greatly delighted his grimy workmates.

Like many other members of the Labour Party, he was greatly influenced in his youth by the principles of "Unto this Last" and "Alton Locke."

Later in life he was set thinking seriously by a course of University Lectures on Political Economy delivered in Poplar by Mr. G. Armitage Smith.

Quietly he began building up a little library of his own, supplemented in later years by an occasional autograph copy from authors whose friends.h.i.+p he had made. Father Dolling, for instance, sent him a copy of his "Ten Years in a Portsmouth Slum," inscribed:--

WILL CROOKS.--The story of a kind of trying to do in a different way what he is doing.--With the author's best Christmas wishes, 1898.

In the flyleaf of this book Crooks keeps the following letter, received after his election to Parliament from the author's sister:--

DEAR MR. CROOKS,--I have just seen the papers, and must send you a word of congratulation on your success. If, as I believe, the blessed dead are allowed to watch over and help us, I am sure my dear brother is thinking of you and praying that in your new sphere of usefulness you may be helped to do G.o.d's will.--Truly yours,

GERALDINE DOLLING.

The book that he values most to-day is a pleasant little story for boys called "Joe the Giant Killer." It was given to him by the author, Dr.

Chandler, Bishop of Bloemfontein, when rector of Poplar. The reason he values it so is because the printed dedication reads:--

"_To_ WILL CROOKS, L.C.C.

_In memory of many years Of delightful comrades.h.i.+p in Poplar._"

When, after the big victory in Woolwich, Crooks was able to add M.P. as well as L.C.C. after his name, there came among hundreds of other congratulations a cabled cheer from South Africa. It was signed "Chandler."

CHAPTER IV

ROUND THE HAUNTS OF HIS BOYHOOD

Proud of his Birthplace--Famous Residents at Blackwall--Memories of Nelson's Flags.h.i.+p--Stealing a Body from a Gibbet--A Waterman who Remembered d.i.c.kens.

Of many interesting days spent with Crooks in Poplar, one stands out as the day on which he showed me some of the haunts of his boyhood.

Poplar is always picturesque with the glimpses it gives of s.h.i.+ps' masts rising out of the Docks above the roofs of houses. With Crooks as guide, this rambling district of Dockland, foolishly imagined by many people to be wholly a centre of squalor, becomes as romantic as a mediaeval town.

It was not always grey and poor, as so many parts of it are to-day, though even these are not without their quaint and pleasant places.

We wended through several of its grey streets, making for the river at Blackwall. Everywhere women and children, as well as men, whom we pa.s.sed greeted Crooks cheerily.

"Can you wonder so many of our people take to drink?" And he pointed to the shabby little houses, all let out in tenements, in the street where he was born. "Look at the homes they are forced to live in! The men can't invite their mates round, so they meet at 'The Spotted Dog' of an evening. During the day the women often drift to the same place. The boys and girls cannot do their courting in these overcrowded homes. They make love in the streets, and soon they too begin to haunt the public-houses."

He changed his tone when we entered the famous old High Street that runs between the West India Docks and Blackwall. He pointed out the house where he spent many years of his boyhood after his parents moved from s.h.i.+rb.u.t.t Street. The old home is a.s.sociated with his errand-boy experiences. In those days he finished work at midnight on Sat.u.r.days, and knowing that his parents would be in bed, he often lingered in the High Street into the early hours of Sunday, playing with other lads who, like himself, had just finished work.

As we continued our way down the High Street together, he surprised me by his wonderful knowledge of the neighbourhood. Here was a Poplar man proud of Poplar. He told me that the now silent High Street was at one time a sort of sailors' fair-ground, like the old Ratcliff Highway. It was there, he said, that Poplar had its beginning, according to the historian Stow. There s.h.i.+pwrights and other marine men built large houses for themselves, with small ones around for seamen.

Not for these people alone were the houses built. Worthy citizens of London lived down there. Sir John de Poultney, four times Lord Mayor, lived in a quaint old house in Coldharbour, at Blackwall, that stood until recently. This same house once formed the home of the discoverer, Sebastian Cabot. It was there that Cabot made friends with Sir Thomas Spert, Vice-Admiral of England, who also had a house at Poplar, and promised Cabot a good s.h.i.+p of the Government's for a voyage of discovery. And, later still, Sir Walter Raleigh is said to have been the tenant, and of course legend credits him with having smoked one of his earliest pipes there.

Gone are the old houses now, with the old traditions, the old gaiety, the old mad enthusiasm for the sea. In his day the Blackwall seaman was a dare-devil, efficient man, eagerly coveted by s.h.i.+powners and captains alike. Never did a s.h.i.+p sail from Blackwall during Crooks's schooldays without most of the boys staying away from school, regardless of results to their skins the next morning, in order to join in the farewell cheering from the foresh.o.r.e. The welcome home to the Blackwall s.h.i.+ps was something to remember. It was always a bitter disappointment to the boys, since it robbed them of an opportunity of playing truant, if a s.h.i.+p came home and docked during the night, having come up, as the old tide-master used to say, and brought her own news.

Little remains to suggest the sea in Poplar High Street to-day. The old highway has lost its old glory. The old folks have forsaken the old homesteads. Of the few old buildings that remain, nearly every one has been cut up into small shops and tenements. One or two general dealers still pose as s.h.i.+ps' outfitters, and an occasional shop remains as a marine store, as though in a final feeble struggle to preserve the old traditions.

Crooks recollected well the period that costermongers thronged this riverside highway. They came about the time seamen were deserting it, so that the street for some time lost nothing of its noise or bustle. The day came when they, too, departed, seeking a more profitable field in Chrisp Street, on the northern side of East India Dock Road, where to this day they still hold carnival. That they carried away something of the seafaring character of their former highway is borne out by the nautical turn they give to some of their remarks.

"Here," cried a fish-dealer of their number the other day, holding aloft a haddock, "wot price this 'ere 'add.i.c.k?"

"Tuppence," suggested a woman bystander.

"Wot! tuppence! 'Ow would you like to get a s.h.i.+p, an' go out to sea an'

fish for 'add.i.c.ks to sell for tuppence in foggy weather like this?"

As we pa.s.sed down that portion of the High Street that skirts the Recreation Ground, Crooks pointed out the quaint old church of St.