Page 249 - down-and-out-in-paris-and-london

for the night, but the police must move you on if they see
you asleep; the Embankment and one or two odd corners
(there is one behind the Lyceum Theatre) are special excep-
tions. This law is evidently a piece of wilful offensive-ness.
Its object, so it is said, is to prevent people from dying of ex-
posure; but clearly if a man has no home and is going to die
of exposure, die he will, asleep or awake. In Paris there is no
such law. There, people sleep by the score under the Seine
bridges, and in doorways, and on benches in the squares,
and round the ventilating shafts of the Metro, and even in-
side the Metro stations. It does no apparent harm. No one
will spend a night in the street if he can possibly help it, and
if he is going to stay out of doors he might as well be allowed
to sleep, if he can.
2. The Twopenny Hangover. This comes a little higher
than the Embankment. At the Twopenny Hangover, the
lodgers sit in a row on a bench; there is a rope in front of
them, and they lean on this as though leaning over a fence.
A man, humorously called the valet, cuts the rope at five
in the morning. I have never been there myself, but Bozo
had been there often. I asked him whether anyone could
possibly sleep in such an attitude, and he said that it was
more comfortable than it sounded—at any rate, better than
bare floor. There are similar shelters in Paris, but the charge
there is only twenty-five centimes (a halfpenny) instead of
twopence.
3. The Coffin, at fourpence a night. At the Coffin you
sleep in a wooden box, with a tarpaulin for covering. It is
cold, and the worst thing about it are the bugs, which, being

Down and Out in Paris and London