On the ropes

[curious4]

Hello all,

While looking for something else, (isn't that always the way!) I finally found what I had read which finally explains exactly what "sleeping on the ropes" entailed.

It is Dickens, but not where I expected to find it. From the Pickwick Papers and Sam Weller is regaling Mr. Pickwick with his life story and mentions that once, between jobs, he took "unfurnished lodgings" - the arches under Waterloo Bridge and says that they were popular with "poor creeturs as an't up to the twopenny rope."

"And, pray, Sam, what is the twopenny rope? inquired Mr Pickwick.

"The twopenny rope, sir," replied Mr. Weller, "is just a cheap lodgin' house, where the beds is twopence a night."

"What do they call a bed a rope for?" said Mr. Pickwick.

"Bless your innocence, sir, that an't it," replied Sam. "Wen the lady and gen'l'm'n as keeps the Ho-tel first begun business they used to make the beds on the floor; but this wouldn't do at no price, 'cos instead o' taking a moderate twopenn'orth o' sleep, the lodgers used to lie there half the day. So now they has two ropes, about six foot apart, and three from the floor, which goes right down the room; and the beds are made of slips of coarse sacking, stretched across 'em."

"Well," said Mr Pickwick.

"Well," said Mr. Weller, "the adwantage o' the plan's hobvious. At six o'clock every morning they lets go the ropes at one end, and down falls all the lodgers. Consequence is, that being thoroughly waked, they get up wery quietly, and walk away!"

Though it was worth putting in the whole thing.

Best wishes,
C4

[Cogidubnus]

The Pickwick Papers

Hello Gwyneth

Yes I remember so many years ago, aged about eight being lent that book by my granny out of her bookchest, (Pickwick was my first Dickens experience), and being helped with that, (and other parts). I'm afraid that at that callow age I found that rather quaint and funny...I suppose I was too young to fully appreciate the tragedy.

All the best

Dave

[curious4]

What the Dickens?

Hello Gwyneth

Yes I remember so many years ago, aged about eight being lent that book by my granny out of her bookchest, (Pickwick was my first Dickens experience), and being helped with that, (and other parts). I'm afraid that at that callow age I found that rather quaint and funny...I suppose I was too young to fully appreciate the tragedy.

All the best

Dave

Hello Dave,

I must have been about the same age as you were when I first read my first Dickens - at my grandmother's house as well. I found the books (and especially the illustrations) terrifying! Don't really know why now, except I think the book was Great Expectations and that does have some really scary bits in it if you are a child. At least I can really appreciate his books now!

I was so glad to finally find the passage about the ropes. I could remember it well but needed to post where it came from to prove my point. The various other claims as to what it was were driving me nuts! Although I can imagine some enterprising American hearing the expression and putting his own spin on it. Can't see any Londoners paying their hard-earned tuppences to be tied round a post or pillar, though!

All good wishes for the New Year!

Gwyneth/C4

[Patrick S]

This brings back memories of converstions with a much older man I met years ago, as a teenager working my first job. He was born in the East End in 1906 (I remember the year because we threw him an 80th birthday party in 1986). He spoke a lot of his father "sleeping on the ropes", more often than not. Apparently, it was a huge deal when he actually made it into a bed. He worked on the docks, if memory serves, and often got off very late. Often the only spots left in the loging houses were 'on the ropes'. He told me that his dad never owned a home or rented an apartment up until the time he met his mother, around the turn of the century. His parents married late in life. I remembe thinking that must have been a lot of years to not know exactly where or how you may be sleeping at night.

He was an incredibly intersting guy. I spoke to him for hours on end, for about three years. I worked in a nursery/landscaping business. He watered the plants, and while he did that he essentially told his life's story. I've always been interested in history and took full advantage. In fact, he was responsible for my interest in JtR to a great extent. He painted a pretty vivid picture of what the atmosphere was like around that time. I remember him telling me that his dad knew 'Leather Apron'. Of course I had to ask who that was. In his telling 'Leather Apron' was what most of the folks called Jack the Ripper throughout most of the time the murders were being committed. He said his dad made extra money escorting women home because they were afraid of 'Leather Apron', and since his dad knew him, he knew he wasn't anyone to be afraid of, although he was a rough sort fellow. But I guess his dad was pretty large, intimidating man. "Leather Apron", his dad said, was "tiny little man".

I picked up a book on JtR and asked him questions. He didn't have much information beyond what his dad had told him. He often confused - it seemed to me - Jack the Ripper and Springheeled Jack. It's funny. In my mind the two are still almost one and the same because that's how he precieved them and related them to me. He said that his dad would often say 'Springheeled Jack will get you". He thought he meant Jack the Ripper. After reading extensively on both, it seems many Victorian kids were likewise threathened by their parents.

I still visited with him up until the time he died, in 1996. He had no family and was at a home near where I lived back then. We didn't discuss JtR much, unless he brought it up. I tended to let him drive the conversations where he wanted them to go. I do vividly remember one conversation we had, though in the 90s. I had read some article citing Druitt as the killer, case closed and all that. I brought it for him and he skimmed through it and said it was all 'bull@hit'. He said everyone knew it was a guy who lived in the East End. I thought he may have been confused again so I asked if he meant "Leather Apron". He said no. Most people knew it wasn't "Leather Apron". The people just didn't like him and wanted to make trouble for him. He said that his dad said a lot of people around Whitechapel knew who JtR was but wouldn't turn him in because he was "an idiot who couldn't help himself". I put that last part in quotes because I wrote it on the article, which I still have.

All to be taken with a grain of salt. But interesting coming from a guy whose dad was there.

[Bridewell]

All to be taken with a grain of salt. But interesting coming from a guy whose dad was there.

Indeed. Who knows but that the grains of salt may include one or more grains of truth.

[Cogidubnus]

I suppose we ought to include a health warning that Pickwick was published some fifty years earlier than the WCMs (serialised 1836-37) and the exact meaning of "sleeping on the ropes" and "the twopenny rope", in common with many slang terms, may well have evolved during that period, to include resting against a single rope, which has been described elsewhere.

All the best

Dave

[curious4]

On the ropes

Hello Dave,

No, sorry, can't see it happening in London. If there was an accepted manner of sleeping in a lodging house, I think people would have felt cheated if they found their sleeping arrangements entailed being tied to a post. It's not likely (to my mind) that it died out and was reinvented.

Hope you are surviving the flooding ok, looks terrible!

Best wishes,
Gwyneth/C4

[Cogidubnus]

Hi Gwyneth

No not tied to a post, but resting against a rope stretched across the room!

So far, touch wood, I've avoided the floods, but we did have two power cuts across Christmas (one of about five and a half hours on the 23rd, followed by an epic one of over seventy six hours starting midday on the 24th) which wiped out our Wedding anniversary party as well as Christmas...

Having said that there are fresh flood alerts today for coastal areas between Thorney Island and Bracklesham, including Bosham, West Itchenor and West Wittering, and also between Selsey Bill and Elmer, including Pagham, Sidlesham and Bognor...so who knows?

Cheers

Dave

[curious4]

Floods

Hello Dave, Oh no! What a disappointment! Christmas is bad enough, but anniversary party as well! Most of my family live in Kent but managed quite well. Do hope you escape any more flooding, must be heart breaking to have your home destroyed. Will keep fingers crossed for you. I am seven floors up on top of a hill, so unless we have a new biblical flood.....

Best wishes,
Gwyneth

[Brenda]

.

There is an old thread....it may have been lost in the crash, but someone found an actual picture of "sleeping on the ropes".....I'll look around but maybe someone saved that photo?

[c.d.]

Here you go:

https://www.google.com/search?q=london+doss+house+sleeping+ropes&client=firefox-a&hs=3RB&sa=N&rls=org.mozilla:en-US:official&tbm=isch&tbo=u&source=univ&ei=yDzIUvLzPMXNsQSl4ILgDQ&ved=0CGYQsAQ4Cg&biw=800&bih=461#facrc=_&imgdii=_&imgrc=X3Aw6Sin4welOM%3A%3BihQUgDUP3yB1uM%3Bhttp%253A%252F%252Fwww.learnhistory.org.uk%252Fwebsite%252FJan28~01.jpg%3Bhttp%253A%252F%252Fforum.casebook.org%252Farchive%252Findex.php%252Ft-2488.html%3B1455%3B1280

c.d.

[curious4]

On the ropes

Hello cd,

Which photo do you mean? First photo is men picking oakum, but on the next "page" you can see the hammock type used in casual wards. I think further on there is a picture from the 1920s where the hammocks seem to be suspended from hooks. Jack London mentions the hammocks but not being tipped out of bed, so I should think that was confined to the lodging houses.

Best wishes,
C4 (alias Workhouses R me) not really, but I am studying them just now.

P.S. My mistake, not page 2, click on the picture to get to Peter Higginbotham's site, with oakum-picking and hammocks.

[c.d.]

Hello Curious,

There is an actual ropes picture in there somewhere. See if this helps.

https://www.google.com/search?q=london+doss+house+sleeping+ropes&client=firefox-a&hs=3RB&sa=N&rls=org.mozilla:en-US:official&tbm=isch&tbo=u&source=univ&ei=yDzIUvLzPMXNsQSl4ILgDQ&ved=0CGYQsAQ4Cg&biw=800&bih=461#facrc=_&imgdii=_&imgrc=X3Aw6Sin4welOM%3A%3BihQUgDUP3yB1uM%3Bhttp%253A%252F%252Fwww.learnhistory.org.uk%252Fwebsite%252FJan28~01.jpg%3Bhttp%253A%252F%252Fforum.casebook.org%252Farchive%252Findex.php%252Ft-2488.html%3B1455%3B1280

c.d.

[c.d.]

Sorry, that didn't work either. Scrolling through the original link should bring it up though.

c.d.

[curious4]

On the ropes

Hello cd,

Think I found what you mean, but to be honest that could be anything, anywhere, men queuing for jobs in America in the depression for example. Sorry, but I'll stick to Dicken's version.

Best wishes,
C4