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Show Poor of . London Starving . JUSTIN M'CARTHY, in a letter to I the Independent, tells that in Lon-J Lon-J don the poor are suffering and actually ac-tually dying of starvation. To the late Boer war he ascribes principally the present . suffering. To meet the ex- : penses of over-taxation on material j frcm which bread is made has placed . the necessaries of life beyond the reach of the poorer classes, who in London outnumber the population of many large cities in America. After describing describ-ing the inabality of the local authorities author-ities poor law guardians and municipal munici-pal councils to meet the pressing demands de-mands of the hungry masses, the writer says: "Therefore, in many of the poorer districts, especially in the east end of the metropolis, there is absolute starvation starv-ation going on just now. The work houses have no. space left in which to pack the starving crowds who are j craving every day and night at their i doors for food and shelter. AJ1 the charitable institutions have exhausted their means .in trying to raise supplies of food for the .famishing residents in the garrets and cellars of London lanes and alleys. The quarters of the Salva tion Army in various parts of London are nightly besieged by hosts of the unemployed and the hungry for whom neither shelter nor the means of sustenance sus-tenance can be provided. To add to the "trouble there are large numbers of men who were Induced to go out and serve as soldiers in the war and who now return home clamorous for. some . means of making a living and utterly unable to find any manner of remunerative remuner-ative occupation. Hundreds and hundreds hun-dreds of these men are only too glad to accept the task of breaking stones under the work house authorities in order to get the means of obtaining food enough to keep them alive." What a sad comment is not this on a country claiming to be the richest , and most prosperous in the world. j "No space in the work houses to pack, the starving crowds," and these crowds includes England's loyal soldiers who left their homes to conquer the Boers. How ungrateful a nation is, that will see its brave and fearless soldiers, who fought its battles starve; at a lime, too, whn the granaries are full, and : her wealthy merchants are reaping rich harvests from the results of the . late war. How different the treatment meted out by Russia to her subjects, where, quite recently, when a famine was threatened, the government immediately im-mediately provided for the emergency-out emergency-out of the public treasury. In England the treasury is used to build warships, buy guns and ammunition to gain new territory and enslave a conquered people. peo-ple. Even her own home subjects who won her battles and gained for her prestige, are forgotten in their hour of need. To obtain a bare living they are w illing and ready to work. The writer commenting on these old soldiers, says: "The mere existence of such a class of sufferers is in itself a cruel satire on the glories of war. The country in general went wild over the successes of the campaign, such as they were, and never could declaim praise enough for the humble heroes who had gone out to South Africa in their thousands to risk their lives for the extension of the empire. Such men, of course, had to give up their employments at- home in order to perform their duties as campaigners, cam-paigners, and now when they come home again they find that their places have long been filled, and that in the ever-Increasing demand for employment employ-ment there is nothing left for them but to become inmates of work houses or to beg their bread." - It is more of a "cruel satire" on the boasted civilization of the British empire, em-pire, to see her soldiers starving. Justin McCarthy adds to his comments com-ments the judgment pronounced on a similar state of affairs which occurred in his boyhood days: "A satirical writer in my early days once described a somewhat similar crisis of poverty in England and wound up by declaring that there was at least one consolation left to the sufferers that the starving outcast might raise his eyes to heaven and bless the fates that he was dying under the finest constitution con-stitution in the world. Perhaps there may be some comfort to the men now vainly seeking for bread in London streets and lanes after their return from the fields of fight when they call to mind the fact that they are starving in the cause of England's supremacy over the two South African republics." Is it to be wondered at, that the working classes are restless, . seeking for redress, when in a country as rich as England they are dying of cold and starvation after offering their very lives in defense of her honor and to perpetuate her old-time greatness? |