Page:Once a Week, Series 1, Volume II Dec 1859 to June 1860.pdf/537

524 To his barrack therefore he goes, when he enters on his new employment. He has to try his capacity during four weeks of probation at lower wages, in the first instance. He finds he is to have yearly one coat, two pairs of trousers, and two pairs of boots, or three shillings a month to find them; and a great-coat and a cape once in two years. Belt, truncheon, and lantern are his apparatus. He must, however, be always provided with a neat suit of black at his own expense, in readiness for any occasion on which he may be sent out in plain clothes.

The first morning he wakes heavy and headachy. The beds in his barrack stand rather close, and most of the men refuse to let the windows be opened during any part of the evening, night, or morning before breakfast. Several of them are so drowsy, too, that they will not stir till the last minute, so that they have no time to wash and make themselves comfortable. They might if they pleased. There are windows enough, and doors and fire-places; but if the majority fasten the windows, and lock the door, and keep the chimney-board up, the minority must suffer for want of air; but as to the washing, each man can act for himself. There is water; and any one who provides himself with a tub and any sort of screen, and who chooses to get up twenty minutes sooner for the purpose, can have the comfort of a fresh and clean skin to begin the day with.

The meals are less regular than messing is commonly understood to be. The notion of a mess is that of meals served punctually three times a day, at which the members may attend or not; but they have no claim for food at other hours. In a police barrack the men are never all collected together, as they serve in relays; and, besides that some are out while others are at home, there is always a considerable number in bed, night and day. John begins with being one of the first relay, which goes out at six in the morning for four hours. He must have his breakfast first. His mother is not the only one who has urged this upon him, for the sake not only of his health, but of freedom from temptation. If he went out hungry he would be obliged to get something at stalls or shops; and this would be undignified, and might lead him into inconvenient gossip and familiarities, and perhaps into the temptation of accepting presents of food and drink when he ought to be minding his duty. All this is true enough; but it is not always easy for a single man to obtain his breakfast before six in the morning, among comrades who are too lazy to get up for it, or too headachy to care for it. As breakfast has to be provided, however, for the men of the night force, who will be coming in presently, the first relay have only to hasten the cooking of the chops as far as their own wants go. John will therefore have his coffee, chop, and potato in time to fall into rank at 6

As he and his comrades march forth—one of them being dropped at each point as they traverse the district—they displace the night force, and send them home to breakfast and bed. Every one of these must be in bed before eight, and re-appear at 3 They will be in their deepest sleep when John comes off his beat at 10 ; and he will have dined and gone forth again before they wake. The only time when he can make the acquaintance of this body of his comrades is in the evening, between his return at 6 and their going forth at 10, for the night.

On this first occasion of relieving them, he is surprised that they do not look more weary after having been on foot for eight hours. His wonder is not likely to be lessened the second day, when he has had experience of the fatigues of his new occupation.

The morning term seems a rather easy affair at first. The streets are cool and not overfull. Workpeople go out quietly to their day’s labour: the shops open gradually and in a leisurely way: the merchants do not appear, and the clerks are in no great number till after nine o’clock. The great people are not visibly stirring, and it is only about a railway-station, or in a market, that there is any overpowering noise or hurry. So John returns in good spirits, rather pitying his comrades who are to support the noontide heat and bustle.

There had been three breakfasts by this time; and soon the series of dinners must begin. John has three hours for some kind of employment, if he can find one which will leave him within instant call of his officers, in case of need, and will not use up the strength he will want in the afternoon. He can read a little for his own amusement; and he likes gossip as well as most young men; but he thinks he must find some handiwork which he can take up at odd hours as he sits in the barrack-room.

The afternoon alters his view of his occupation a good deal. He had no previous conception of the difference between walking for four hours in London on one’s own single and particular business, and doing the same thing in the pursuit of everybody else’s. Every shop-door and cellar-window along miles of street is under his care. He must look to every child on the pavement, and every passenger at each crossing. Every high-couraged, and every stumbling, skinny horse must be watched by him. He must have his eye on every beggar, and must painfully discern suspicious from respectable persons, and make no mistakes. He has been recommended to acquaint himself with the faces of all the householders throughout his beat; a most tremendous task in itself. He is under a perfect pelt of questions for the four hours, as if there were a conspiracy to ask him things that he did not know. Half-a-dozen times he is angrily told that he has shown himself just too late on that particular spot, and that his superiors should be told that their men were never to be found when wanted. A few puzzling cases have already occurred which show him that he does not understand his own powers and duties so well as he had imagined: and when at length six o’clock strikes, he goes off his day’s duty “dead beat,” as his comrades jeeringly tell him. He is indeed nearly distracted with the noise, the hurry, the worry, and the general pulling to pieces, which make this incomparably the most fatiguing day he ever remembers to have passed in his life.

His dinner had been prime beefsteak, potatoes,