DOWN AND OUT IN PARIS AND LONDON

GEORGE ORWELL

"It is the white-hot reaction of a   sensitive,observant,compassionate    young man to poverty,injustice and the  callousness of the rich."

I can  at least say,this is the world that awaits you if you are ever  penniless.Some day I want to explore that world more thoroughly.I should like to know people like Mario an Paddie and Bill the moocher,not from casual encounters but intimately;I should like to understand what really goes on in the souls of plongeurs and tramps and Embarkment sleepers.At present I do not feel that I have seen more than the fringe of poverty. Still,I can point to one or two things I have definetely learned by being hard up.I shall never again think that all tramps are drunken scoundrels,nor expect a beggar to be grateful when I give him a penny,nor be surprised if men out of work lack energy,nor subscribe to the Savation Army,nor pawn my clothes,nor refuse a handbill,nor enjoy a meal at a smart restaurant.That is a beginning.

People have a way of taking it for granted that all work is done for a sound purpose.They see somebody else doing a disareeable job,and think that they have solved things by saying that the job is necessary. Is a longeur's work really necessary to civilisation?We have a vague feeling that it must be "honest" work,because it is hard and disagreeable,and we have made a sort of fetish of manual work.

We know that poverty is unpleasant;in fact,since it is so remote,we often enjoy harrowing ourselves with the thought of its unpleasantness.But don't expect us to do anything about it.We are sorry for your lower Classes,just as we are sorry for a cat( ...),but we will fight like devil against any improvement of your condition.We feel that you are much safer as you are.The present state of affairs suits us,and we are not going to take the risk of setting  you free,even by an extra hour a day.So,dear brothers,since evidently you must sweat to pay our trips to Italy,sweat and be damned with you.

This is particularly the attitude of intelligent,cultivated people,one could render the substance of it in a hundred essays.

These prejudices are rooted in the idea that every tramp,ipso facto,is a blackguard.In childhood we have been taught that tramps are blackguards,and consequently there exists in our minds a sort of ideal or typical tramp-a repulsive,rather dangerous creature,who would die rather  than work or wash,and wants nothing but to beg,drink and rob hen-houses.This tramp-monster is no truer to life than the sinister Chinamen of the magazine stories,but he is very hard to get rid of.The very word "tramp" evokes this image.

If you get yourself to it,you can live the same life ,rich or poor.You can keep on with your books and your ideas you just got to say to yourself -"I'm a free man in here"-he tapped his forehead-and you're all right.