| Show tir delv DEIV the following notes on old edan edinburgh are from the pen of the englishwoman lish woman gan man in America miss mibs T L bird se 91 has b as v visited kwoist the worst slump slums af the thames district t london th the 91 water evater side sido f quebec and the five ani and mud huts of new york but she finds mare dirt diri degradation overcrowding and shamelessness in in edinburgh than in any of them she says bays it stands proved most conclusively that scotch calvinism and puritanism vaunted as they are fall utterly to produce even everi ordinary decency in their thein very capital the lower floor of john knobs house is one of the worst spirit shops in the city and john knobs church is the centre of an area densely Pack fack packed edwith with human bei beings rigs hying living and dying like swine close close by john knobs house bouse is a well the 0 only Y water supply of or the district and here her e from six in the morning until n nearly earl eari midnight stand women girls and children struggling for their turn somei some often having to wait three hours though this wretched district is the best paying property in the city no pipes or taps are to ba b seen in thirty seven houses which we visited this water grievance was enlarged lupori upon ot oil a seventh story in one wretched den the husband was down with the fever feyer crying for water the wife burst into tears sobbing out oh toh god only knows what it is to slave after thew the ater water its killing me and him too and in the glen we we ame came from the bonnie burn ran by the door 1 they were evicted peasants from perthshire Perth shire in this part of df edinburgh the population ofa of a village is constantly crammed into the aix or seven stories stones of one r house in no other city say gay the writer I 1 could tenements be found without gas gag without water pipes water closet or sink or temporary r estace for ashes an and d entered C only byone lae long liong darit dark stone atone stair which ra return turn buch such enormous profits to their owners as from forty five per cent sear Scar scarcely cely coly elsewhere does ona one roof cover a pop population ula uia of or persons in dens deng honeycombed out of jarger rooms tilt without hout ventilation without privacy and often without direct light tana rix rax other city is the respectable compelled fb por for want of house dooda tion ofa of a proper kind to bring up Ns his family in a tenement which deserves I 1 indictment as a 61 nuisance pr to xa 5 or 08 8 a year for a aden den S swarming war wax aiming iming with vermin with nith only a wooden partition to keep hew ox off the sights and aud admit all the thy sounds of haunts of the most moat degraded vice in edinburgh which 1 in more respects than one is set got on ori a abill hill and be bahia hid bid there are fa families nilles comprising gitig not only the vicious and abject but large numbers of the theTo i laboring class chiass living in houses of but one and of these single rooms 1530 are inhabited by from six to fifteen persons person sl further by the last census of these shelters for fog they are not houses were reported as without windows window and were cellars nearly all of them dark and many damp these figures give the astonishing result that the families living in one room and often herding together in closer proximity than animals would endure endured com pers fins or considerably I 1 kore eore more than on one third 0 af pf i the population tio a of Edin burghl ehe THE SATURDAY NIGHT As the night goes on the crowd becomes more drunk and cri crl criminal until til the legal ebur of the spirit shops when hundreds of pallid ragged wretches are vomited forth upon the street treet to carry earry terrors into their dark crowded homes the majority are half mad and almost wholly desperate man mid and women savage with drink are biting scratching and ma mauling tiling each other the air is laden with blasphemies ph phe mies emles brutal shouts from the strong cries from the weak blows are dealt aimlessly infants at midnight eryin bryin cry in the wet street for mothers drunk in the gutters or police cells young girls and boys are locked out for the night by parents frantic w with th drink storm policemen icemen icamen here hero ere and there drag an offen offender derout out of the crowd amidst the chaffing and coarse laughter of young girls bearing the outward marks of or a life of degradation mothers with 1 infants ifan ta in ill I 1 thor their arms lie hel hei helpless pless in ih the 6 gatters git lera tera to be trundled off to the finai final ign ignominy odthe of the police cell wretches I 1 se scarcely ely elg eld clothed thed whom the krim knows s not riot slink stealth stealthily lly ily fout font cellar lair and all this and worse this from the tron down the canon gate pate and along the and I 1 inthe lathe t e Grass market and aad in numbers of df the lanes and alleys broad and b narrow arroya chieh bor border derupo upon n them the district we visited by day we visited also by night ight to find that at 11 pm the whole population 0 U of the lanes previously described was astir mostly from doin evil partly from frow the impossibility lity of if quiet that small clr cir ildren lidren were still oui out among inciong the influences of the closes and the street and that there was no sign that the night bight had come comb except the darkness ani ant aud and the increased overcrowding of many of the rooms the dark dirk narrow passages were in several places almost impassable owing to the dead drunk men who lay across them the rooms were wert thronged thron ged and stifling and sick alck and weil well drunk and sober vicious vicious and virtuous were all huddled together with only a pretence predence pre tence of separation whole families were sitting in the dark or cowering round fires which 0 only rendered the darkness visible A horror of great darkness rested on all the houses the noise was waa hideous decent people might well be afraid of going to bed half the inmates were under the influence of drink drunkards tumbled up the long dark reeled down the dark passages with shouts and imprecations destitute even of the instinct which teaches a wild beast the way to its awn den bounds sounds of brawling fighting and revelry came from many of the rooms here a drunkard W was wats fas aas mcking kicking through the panels of a neighbors door there two to dead drunk women lay on a heap of straw here a half half palf tipsy virago protested it ta us with the air of a tragedy queen that she took in none nono but respectable lodgers here a man mad with drink drini tordis tobel toFel his hig cifes throat with his big nalis nails one olle woman presented a disgusting scene seene bf f revelry and vice in the next i a feeble woman was stifling the ahe moans df ofa a dying child an Andi andl 11 that day was AVAN th the 0 breur preparation a ratios 11 it was the this edinburgh saturday at d y night hight und and over the diamand discord of city csinsi sins and ov erthe ami of city sorrows came the sweet sound of t giles bells announcing that the abbath hadi hadl begun 1 3 1 91 ii I 1 |
