Hooligan Nights | Page 7

gaol long before he had to go into hospital, where he died.
There is little that is remarkable in this career. But the man must have
had a forceful personality, a picturesqueness, a fascination, which
elevated him into a type. It was doubtless the combination of skill and
strength, a certain exuberance of lawlessness, an utter absence of
scruple in his dealings, which marked him out as a leader among men.
Anyhow, though his individuality may be obscured by legend, he lived,
and died, and left a great tradition behind him. He established a cult.
The value of a cult is best estimated by its effect upon its adherents,
and as Patrick Hooligan is beyond the reach of cross-examination, I
propose to devote a few words to showing what manner of men his
followers are, the men who call themselves by his name, and do their
best to pass the torch of his tradition undimmed to the nippers who are
coming on.
I should perhaps not speak of them as men, for the typical Hooligan is a
boy who, growing up in the area bounded by the Albert Embankment,
the Lambeth Road, the Kennington Road, and the streets about the

Oval, takes to tea-leafing as a Grimsby lad takes to the sea. If his taste
runs to street-fighting there is hope for him, and for the community. He
will probably enlist, and, having helped to push the merits of gin and
Christianity in the dark places of the earth, die in the skin of a hero.
You may see in Lambeth Walk a good many soldiers who have come
back from looking over the edge of the world to see the place they were
born in, to smell the fried fish and the second-hand shoe-leather, and to
pulsate once more to the throb of a piano-organ. On the other hand, if
his fingers be lithe and sensitive, if he have a turn for mechanics, he
will slip naturally into the picking of pockets and the rifling of other
people's houses.
The home of the Hooligan is, as I have implied, within a stone's throw
of Lambeth Walk. Law breakers exist in other quarters of London:
Drury Lane will furnish forth a small army of pick-pockets, Soho
breeds parasites, and the basher of toffs flourishes in the Kingsland
Road. But in and about Lambeth Walk we have a colony, compact and
easily handled, of sturdy young villains, who start with a grievance
against society, and are determined to get their own back. That is their
own phrase, their own view. Life has little to give them but what they
take. Honest work, if it can be obtained, will bring in but a few
shillings a week; and what is that compared to the glorious possibility
of nicking a red 'un?
Small and compact, the colony is easily organized; and here, as in all
turbulent communities, such as an English public school, the leader
gains his place by sheer force of personality. The boy who has kicked
in a door can crow over the boy who has merely smashed a window. If
you have knocked-out your adversary at the little boxing place off the
Walk, you will have proved that your friendship is desirable. If it
becomes known--and it speedily becomes known to all but the
police--that you have drugged a toff and run through his pockets, or,
better still, have cracked a crib on your own and planted the stuff, then
you are at once surrounded by sycophants. Your position is assured,
and you have but to pick and choose those that shall work with you.
Your leadership will be recognized, and every morning boys, with both
eyes skinned for strolling splits, will seek you out and ask for orders for

the day. In time, if you stick to work and escape the cops, you may
become possessed of a coffee-house or a sweetstuff shop, and run a
profitable business as a fence. Moreover, your juniors, knowing your
past experience, will purchase your advice--paying for counsel's
opinion--when they seek an entrance to a desirable house in the suburbs,
and cannot decide between the fanlight and the kitchen window. So you
shall live and die respected by all men in Lambeth Walk.
The average Hooligan is not an ignorant, hulking ruffian,
beetle-browed and bullet-headed. He is a product of the Board School,
writes a fair hand, and is quick at arithmetic. His type of face
approaches nearer the rat than the bull-dog; he is nervous, highly-strung,
almost neurotic. He is by no means a drunkard; but a very small
quantity of liquor causes him to run amuck, when he is not pleasant to
meet. Under-sized as a rule, he is sinewy, swift, and untiring. For
pocket-picking and burglary the featherweight is at an advantage.