| Show AWFUL LONDON london april 1 this morning the writer had occasion to stand for a few brief minutes outside a well known bank situated on a still tetter better known thoroughfare of the made modern babylon en passant he had no business to transact at the atom bank but if a fellow must loaf leaf let him at least keep up appearances vide the knutsford rotunda at 8 pm any evening Top and satin faced prince albertea Alber ted humanity was scurrying along on business bent presently Pres antty an object who seemed sadly out of place amidst the atmosphere of adock and bonds hove in sight aone ont of those poor creatures who are am down at heel unah unshaved aved and withal unkempt poverty personified personifi gd he fia was war dining sumptuously aroln the contests of a areah gre greasy ah piece of newspaper not the cuban cri crisis sift but a penny worth ot of fried fish cooked in horse olly oil and perhaps a of potatoes apparently he had attained al ht nil tur he threw the remains of his lunch low the gutter and thoughtfully wiped ift ten days beard with the battle batic of his grimy paw then faded out of sight anon a shorty little for terrier danis came along took one sniff at ane wed tried limb flab bones then like the arime ot of old passed by on the other tilde side then a ponderous bus pounded by an alff smashed one halt half of the or of the he epicurean meal the barty orect caught the eye of the street nger and he swooped down upon it with hl ate ever busy pan and brush but bit h hb WOW wa too late A wrinkled claw descended upon the tit bit and the next a bloated gin sodden hag was devour ing the castaway fragments altu wib ity someone laughed A portly weri fed and groomed individual murmured d poor devil and jhb th trad lio wem rumbling along utterly oblivious of th fb tragedy but it Is not on the main krte arteries rlee of this great city that one sees seen poverty and vice in all its sordid get into the slums just a fow few hundred yards at the back and one can bew fr such sights that make the dweller amidst the valleys of the mountains shudder and wonder in dazed horror forrd f can such things be on this fair earth t the same sights are to be seen to a greater or lesser degree in all large cities but possibly nowhere are an wealth and poverty brought inta such contrast as an in the city of london ten minutes walk from the bank of england the stock exchange and the fa moui lombard street one plunges into sodden and odoriferous SpItal spitalfields fields an equal distance from the general post postoffice office and one is in filthy st lukes leave any of the brilliantly lighted theaters of the west end and in a few minutes you may tread the evil smelling alleys and courts of clare market while across the river almost within stones throw from spurgeons Spur geons tabernacle are hidden away the tumble down rookeries rook eries adjacent to the borough and yet a stranger may spend weeks in london and never run across how great is the poverty therein hidden away I 1 I 1 have before me some arti articles cIes anthe subject that appeared in the dally daily news some time back here are a few cases taken at random A man discovered in a bare garret in Spital spitalfields fields abool absolutely naked and dying of starvation he had bad pawned the last rag he had for a few farthings far things another case in the same parish A family occupying a single room wherein was an uncovered body of a dead child that had lain upon the table for 15 16 days in a room 14 feet square and occupied by five persons another body at a later date was found that of a child who had died of scarlet fever there ishad it had rested for five days whilst the family were working at their trade in order to bury it the trade in question being that of tailoring for a wholesale clothing firm nice for the ultimate purchasers of that particular clothing six other cases of a similar nature are quoted the parish authorities ties of course would bury the dead but poverty Is in proud and prefers to save its loved ones from a paupers haupers pau pers grave the all pervading thought as one treads these awful alleys and just gets a glimpse of the inner life of poverty apolis opolis is in how Is it that people try to earn an honest livelihood in the face of such adverse circumstances with no hope and nothing to live tor for that the slums are the haunts of vice and crime goes without saying but that there are thousands of honest workers to be found in their midst mid stis lis also true and how do they earn their sustenance contemplate the fact all ye who deem a dollar a day a bagos wage how would you like to make match boxes at two pence farthing 4 cents per gross and find your own paste and string at that that to Is the average price paid and a beginner frequently cannot make more than half a crown 60 cents a week working twelve to fourteen hours a v day around the bethnal betheal green district brict although the sweating system has been made a misdemeanor by act of parliament a friend of mine on an one of the london papers informs me that one can visit room after room occupied by families who live there making shirts button holes for clothing boys coata coals sewing the tops nf shoes until the thread cuts to the bone and one could place a dime in the incision etc never going more than a hundred yards from their foetid room from one weeks end to another slaving in season and out of season for a miserable equivalent to a dollar and a half a week each can one wonder that over women and girls elect to walk the streets of london nightly choosing a life of sin and waterloo bridge as its end to one of drudgery and despair all honor to those however coarse illiterate and unkempt they may be who struggle along and try to earn an honest living in the face of such an appalling handicap geo R beins one of glands En leading journalists and melodramatic playwrights in writing on the sub eject lect some years ago and things have not materially changed since then regarding some of the attendants to the union street borough mission house hous says the work which these girls have to do in return for a small wage Is generally of a dangerous character many of them literally snatch their food from the jaws of death one girl in the home was white and ill III and weak and her story may be taken as a sample she worked at bronzing the rg law recognizes the dangerous nature of the work says that the girls doing it shall be allowed a pint of milk per day the milk in some way counteracting the effect of the poison the girls inhale it will hardly be believed that some of the best firms refuse to comply with the regulation and if the girls complain they axe are at once discharged now the wages paid are seven shillings per week to keep at their work it is necessary that the workers take medicine daily and drink at least a pint of milk they must either pay for these luxuries out of their scanty earnings or go without and eventually find their way to the hospital take another trade the fur pulling the women and girls employed at this are in some shops chops locked in the room with their work and have to eat their food there if you had ever seen a room crowded with girls pulling the fluff from cats rabbits rats and goodness knows what other animals you would appreciate the situation better the fluff the down and the small hairs smother everything and are necessarily swallowed with pernicious effect yet it is the custom ot of some of the men in the trade to force their employed emp loyes to eat under such circumstances cum stances that is to swallow their food thickly coated with the hairs from which nothing can preserve it and so on tor for pages housing of the poor is receiving more attention and since my last visit to london seven years ago lots of the old shacks have disappeared and big tenement houses containing as many as eight hundred families in a block have sprung up erected by various companies still the rush for accommodation mo dation is on the increase and rents are tearfully fearfully high in price garrets under a leaky roof fetching the price equivalent to 75 cents per week payable each morning or out go bag and baggage only this last week during the trial of a murder case it transpired that two women and tour four men lived in one of these particular garrets incidentally not one of them was related one to the other dr drysdale stated in a magazine article recently that in england egland alone there are over deaths per annum as an the direct result of overcrowding statistics regarding the worst districts show that the average breathing per capita was nine and a half square feet A dead body is in allowed in the grave some rome sixteen feet comments are superfluous to endeavor to spread the gospel to these poor souls would be to be met with withering vituperation and howling animosity and yet they have a soul to save how to save it is the question hundreds of noble men and women have tried to solve the problem for years let us eat drink especially drink and be merry for tomorrow we will probably be kicked out to join the army strong who skulk in doorways and railway arches every night in london for shelter is their motto drink and drown the present seems to be the sole desire of these poor wretches with houseless Hou heads unfed sides and looped and win windowed dowd raggedness on every corner is a public house its doors incessantly swinging to and fro foul oaths quarrelling and brawling are in evidence both within and without As an object lesson to the youth who thinks it manly to hang around saloons and shift schooners ners a visit to a slum pub would be in valuable the lowest dive we have in salt lake city is a palace in comparison in company with two companions the writer made a round of half a dozen of these sinks of iniquity and depravity a couple of at months ago and the experience will never be forgotten no spontaneous gaiety oh no sullen looks curses dire stench and fumes children playing around on the sawdust strewn floor children in arms were well represented they were there by the score running the risk that they all have to undergo viz being crippled for life by being dropped on the pavement by their drunken mothers infants absorbing alcohol into their or nr little dirty emancipated emancia ted systems from their mothers breast nay we saw one bleared eyed mother forcing neat gin down a childs throat whilst it kicked siut sputtered and gasped a vehement protest against such treatment outside another pub were two young women girls in fact stripped stark naked to the waist and fighting not scratching and slapping but sparring like men and punctuating each blow with a string of obscene and revolting language whilst a boisterous crowd of ribald men and women yelled go it sal a bloody fine one liza and this is enlightened christian england two or three times a week private detectives conduct parties through these slums at night in the same fashion as excursions are conducted through chinatown in frisco and how some of the delicately nurtured ladies in the party do drink in every detail of jack the rippers dippers Rip pers crimes as they are recited by the guide in the identical spots and rooms faugh of course in poverty row as elsewhere there are different degrees of society leaving the aristocratic burglar and the deft pickpocket out of the question the unique sharp and ever ready witted coster is the aristocrat of the slums for is he not a a merchant even if he does leave his barrow out in the court and takes the wheels to bed with him so that the barrow may not vanish in the night that is not all he takes to bed with him either for he sleeps on his stock in trade that invariably consists of vegetables or foodstuffs and in a good many cases brings in his faithful moke jackass to share the shelter of his single room with his hia wife and all too numerous family to see the coster in all his glory go any saturday night down chapel street Is lington on the mile end road coster barrows and stalls line the curb the proprietors of these miniature open air shops are mostly hatless and dirty men and women who yell in stentorian tones utterly unintelligible to the unsophisticated american the virtues and qualities of their respective wares each stall is lighted by a couple or more of flaring naptha lamps that throw a lurid glare over the scene one cannot describe everything that is for sale and bought after much fingering and haggling by horrid bloated faced women and prematurely old dirty faced matted haired children things that we throw away in utah are displayed for sale mach each merchant seems to indulge in an exclusive line of business such as an cows hoofs sheep heads liver and lights and other epicurean epicure am dainties the coster girls enteria thrust under ones nose halfpenny 1 I 1 cent lots of vegetables consisting ot of say halt half an onion a potatoe and two carrots with ere yer axe are me dimpled darling conly a a penny think of being compelled to buy ones sunday dinner under such circumstances and it if you want it wrapped to in pap paper bring brin your own material along A great many of the small shops off the mile end road deal almost exclusively in farthing cent of tee tea sugar etc and if any one wants 11 strap credit he can cam only gt get it providing he has been a good customer and Is charged exactly per cent until the next day A visit to a thieves kitchen a penny guff sing song an east bast end theater where they like their drama hot and strong md and strange to say aay cheer virtue to the echo the hospitals and various philanthropic institutions institution makes the most callous momentarily sober and thoughtful imagine little children young boys and girls and even mature men and women wh have never slept between even dirty sheets and to whom a tree bearing fruit a green fild or one hundred and one dally sights that we pass without comment in utah would be as a glimpse of heaven what wonder that anarchy and infidelity Is rampant jr in since I 1 have been ov over here chere I 1 have often wondered what could be done to alleviate the condition of these poor wretches with whom we axe are brought into dally contact and can come only to the same game conclusion that men who have made the subject a lifes study arrived at years ago viz amongst the young and rising generation must the reforms be made the 4 cases of the adults are past redemption g surely we in new and flourishing countries can learn leam something from 0 such a terrible object lesson GEO E CARPENTER ECARPENTER |
