The Idler Magazine, Volume III, April 1893 | Page 8

of Joe Hollends. He was a
perfected specimen of the work a pub produces. He was probably the
most persistent drunkard the Road possessed, and the periodical
gathering in of Joe by the police was one of the stock sights of the
street. Many of the inhabitants could be taken to the station by one

policeman; some required two; but Joe's average was four. He had been
heard to boast that on one occasion he had been accompanied to the
station by seven bobbies, but that was before the force had studied Joe
and got him down to his correct mathematical equivalent. Now they
tripped him up, a policeman taking one kicking leg and another the
other, while the remaining two attended to the upper part of his body.
Thus they carried him, followed by an admiring crowd, and watched by
other envious drunkards who had to content themselves with a single
officer when they went on a similar spree. Sometimes Joe managed to
place a kick where it would do the most good against the stomach of a
policeman, and when the officer rolled over there was for a few
moments a renewal of the fight, silent on the part of the men and
vociferous on the part of the drunkard, who had a fine flow of abusive
language. Then the procession went on again. It was perfectly useless
to put Joe on the police ambulance, for it required two men to sit on
him while in transit, and the barrow is not made to stand such a load.
Of course, when Joe staggered out of the pub and fell in the gutter, the
ambulance did its duty, and trundled Joe to his abiding place, but the
real fun occurred when Joe was gathered in during the third stage of his
debauch. He passed through the oratorical stage, then the maudlin or
sentimental stage, from which he emerged into the fighting stage, when
he was usually ejected into the street, where he forthwith began to
make Rome howl, and paint the town red. At this point the policeman's
whistle sounded, and the force knew Joe was on the warpath, and that
duty called them to the fray.
It was believed in the neighbourhood that Joe had been a college man,
and this gave him additional standing with his admirers. His eloquence
was undoubted, after several glasses varying in number according to
the strength of their contents, and a man who had heard the great
political speakers of the day admitted that none of them could hold a
candle to Joe when he got on the subject of the wrongs of the working
man and the tyranny of the capitalist. It was generally understood that
Joe might have been anything he liked, and that he was no man's enemy
but his own. It was also hinted that he could tell the bigwigs a thing or
two if he had been consulted in affairs of State.

One evening, when Joe was slowly progressing as usual, with his feet
in the air, towards the station, supported by the requisite number of
policemen, and declaiming to the delight of the accompanying crowd, a
woman stood with her back to the brick wall, horror-stricken at the
sight. She had a pale, refined face, and was dressed in black. Her
self-imposed mission was among these people, but she had never seen
Joe taken to the station before, and the sight, which was so amusing to
the neighbourhood, was shocking to her. She enquired about Joe, and
heard the usual story that he was no man's enemy but his own, although
they might in justice have added the police. Still, a policeman was
hardly looked upon as a human being in that neighbourhood. Miss
Johnson reported the case to the committee of the Social League, and
took counsel. Then it was that the reclamation of Joe Hollends was
determined on.
Joe received Miss Johnson with subdued dignity, and a demeanour that
delicately indicated a knowledge on his part of her superiority and his
own degradation. He knew how a lady should be treated even if he was
a drunkard, as he told his cronies afterwards. Joe was perfectly willing
to be reclaimed. Heretofore in his life, no one had ever extended the
hand of fellowship to him. Human sympathy was what Joe needed, and
precious little he had had of it. There were more kicks than halfpence in
this world for a poor man. The rich did not care what became of the
poor; not they--a proposition which Miss Johnson earnestly denied.
It was one of the tenets of the committee that where possible the poor
should help the poor. It was resolved to get Joe a decent suit of clothes
and endeavour to find him a place