LONDON'S FAMISHED
POOR
LEADERS OF RANK AND FASHION GO SLUMMING.
SHOCKING SIDELIGHTS
ON GREAT CITY'S
UNDERWORLD.
(By Wilkinson Sherren;
LONDON, December 31, 1903.
Among the rich in England there is a sudden boom in slumming. Though often spoken of as the "wealthiest city in the world," London presents this -winter a startling spectacle of contrasting luxury and dire distress. The Thames Embank- ment gradually developed into the clear- ing-house of human -wreckage, until a week or two ago the scandal became so great that the Salvation Army, -with official en- couragement, took tho situation in hand. Every night officers from General Booth's headquarters escort thousands of derelicts to shelters and "doss-houses," where warmth and soup are provided free.
»So compelling has this glaring demon- stration of London misery become, how- ever, that all sections of society, and »li political partie« in the realm have awak- ened to the necessity for action. Conserva- tive politicians charge all the unemplry
ment to the account of the Freetraders, |
who have maintained England's policy of . free imports. They contend if a tariff j were imposed on manufactured goods im-
ported from abroad there would be greater industrial activity in home centres, and I many ot these penniless wrecks would bs I ' employed. Liberals, on the other hand,
blame the British bystem of land tenure, and say the only hope is to make it pos- sible for country laborers to secure access
! to small holdings, so that they may not
DEAD OR MERELY SLEEPING?
It is hard to tell very often whether the human wrecks along the Embankment are dead or slumbering. Their pallid faces have the hue of death. Sometimes in the grey dawn police do come upon unfortunate victims crushed beneath Fortune's wheel-starved to death, under the shadow of luxurious hotels.
j drift to towns in the mistaken expectation of improving' their position.
Meanwhile wealthy men and women in their West End mansions have heard the wail of the starving denizens of London's back alleys more this winter than ever be- fore. Tremendous impetus has been given to the Personal Service Association, born | just a year ago, whose ? members pledge
themselves to devote personal efforts to better the lot of those who exist miserably in the shadow of metropolitan poverty. How widely the movement has gripped society may be seen from the fact that tne president of this new organisation is the Marquis of Salisbury, son of the famous Conservative ex-Premier, and a vice-pre- sident is Mrs. Asquith, wife 'of the head of the Liberal Party to-day.
For it has become known to all that while the ingenuity of. British statesmen has been bent on organising a territoiial force of volunteers, and men have bean enthusing over the rapidly-growing bat- talions of citizen soldiers, an army of a different character has been mustering the capital of the British Empire.
London is a magnefc that draws all types of people from the country, and a tradition that her streets arc paved with gold at- tracts not only the ambitious but the un- fortunate from every part of the land. During the summer months the presence of the social failures is not so noticeable, bo cause of the lure of the open road and the facilities for sleeping out in the parks. But now, with the arrival of winter, rich and comfortable London is confronted with her spectral army of failures and unfortu- nates, of unemployables and genuine out
of-works.
By an irony of circumstance London's spectacle of want and woe assumes its most wretched and heartrending phase within hail of the Houses of Parliament, where nt» raw has yet been devised to benefit the lot of th<- distressed to any material extent. The Thames Embankment has the national "talking shop" at one end and Blackfriars Bridge at the other, and between thefee points there is a nightly parade of the army of despair, a large number of whom belong to the class described by Gorky as "crea- tures that once were men." Above them may be seen the sparkling windows of
ONE OF LONDON'S HOMELESS WOMEN.
Bound for some railway arch, with a bag oí shavings for-her bed and scraps of broken food in her basket.
famous hotels shining cheerily in the night -symbols of well-being in brutal juxta- position to human misery.
To accompany one of the emissaries of the Salvation Army at midnight is to come full tilt against tragedy. Men, stupeäed with sleep blunder by with moth-like mo- tions, or snatch fitful repose on the seats.
To each is given a food ticket, but most of the recipients might be dead men for all the response it evokes.
There have been many pilgrimages in the history of England, but none like the nightly journey of homeless and starving
men along the Thames Embankment to the Millbank Shelter, for a basin of soup and a hunch of bread. I saw all sorts and con- ditions of men too dazed by ills-self-in- flicted and fate-inflicted-even to enjoy the brief respite from the cold horror of the streets. Drugged with weariness, gaunt with hunger, fevered with impotent de- spair, the battalions'of the lost looked like dismal caracatnres of the busy and well employed people who carry on the work ol London. As a handful of chaff is scattered in the air and lost, so the members of this
midnight supper party disappeared. ¡
Shelter of any kind is their life's great problem. Old women may be seen carry- ing bits of broken food in their baskets or a bed of shavings in a sack, which the,y spread under a railway arch. Their faces are seamed with lines of sordid care; tlteiv
mouths are shaped in the curves of a hope- '? less destiny. Other unfortunates limp the streets all night, snatching brief intervals
of unquiet slumber on doorsteps, to be sup- ! plemented with "forty winks" on E-nbank- j
ment seats till moved cm by the police.
The British workhouse is a notoriously ' unpopular institution -with the poor folk it ! was designed by law to help. Poverty in Britain is still considered to be more or less of a crime, anêl social failures incur some stigma even now by availing them,-." selves of the help the Poor Law affords.
A few days ago there came to light the case of two old people yvno preferred to die of destitution rather than go into the workhouse. Sarah Smith, aged 71, earned her bread by cleaning doorsteps, and had never applied for an old age pension, the probability being that she had not heard of the scheme. Isaac Harris, agEd 63. formerly a policeman and a publican, though practically starving, declined to apply for relief of any kind, stating that he "would not lower himself" by do'ng so. The coroner spoke the epitaph over these two unfortunate people, in which the ugly word starvation figured as a con- tributory cause of death. So, it will be seen, pride is not an exclusive attribute of the highest ranks of British society.
One of the most shocking stories of want and woe this -winter has been told to the magistrate at Willesden, a northern district of London. The authorities ha'ed
a man before the court for non-payment . of the poor rate-a levy made on the pub- lic for the assistance of the indigent. In answer to the charge he handed the magis- trate a letter from his wife couched in the following terms:
"Poer rates! Why, there are none poorer than we are, and if you take my husband away I don't know what -will be- come of me and the children. If you knew what we have gone through you would have pity. A few months ago my baby, aged eight months, died of starvation, and at night the parish undertaker called for the body and placed it in his handbag, in which was another body." Such cases frequently crop up. confirming the truth of the saying, "HalF the world does-not know how the other half lives." Police Court authorities in such cases excuse the payment of the rates, but there are thousands whose plaint is never heard.
Ugly pospibilities of modern civilised life are made terribly plain by this leal torn from the page of living London-the
poor taxed for the poor, and their offspring when dead carried away like a parcel from the store.
1171 ANDOVER GIGANTIC PIG LIKE THING
PRIEST STRUCK BY LIGHTNING
O CHUPA-CABRAS SURGE COM MAIS FREQUÊNCIA
NOS ANOS DE MISÉRIA DO MÉXICO ANOS 90
NA IRLANDA UND ENGLAND NOS ANOS DE 1874 E 1905 DEAD SHEEP
o jornalismo prefere os temas sobrenaturaes à miséria humana é natural
1855 great sea serpent - silver lake new york
Michigan - scores of airships 1896-97
1925 THE YETI DOESN'T EXIST
BUT HE DOESN'T HAVE ENOUGH BRAINS TO REALIZE IT
Society at large is uneasy. The groans of the slaves of hunger have at last pene- trated into the secluded atmosphère ot mansions and castles. Nobody is ignorant of the fact that winter has let loose the hounds of cold and wet upon England's army of unwilling martyrs. Social students, knowing the close connection between de- spair and violence, have agitated in season and out of season among tlie well-to-do for sympathetic attention to social problems. Hence the establishment of this Personal Service Association, which ca'ls for nvn and women to visit regularly through the winter one or more families in the poorer i districts of London.
1 Some of the best-known names in English
life are associated with this effort and ap- peal. They work in co-operation with various philanthropic agencies. Al- ready many families have been lifted out of the ranks of distress by the ¡ persistent interest and influence of a
friend. Young girls and boys have been rescued from illness and idleness, side , people given the chance of recoveiy, and j wage-earners persuaded to make provision
I for the future. Besides the actual services
I rendered, real friendships have been formed j between the helper and the helped, and
some understanding arrived at of eacñ other's problems.
Sentimental sops for economic woes is the generaî verdict passed bj- Socialists on Icindly and ameliorative efforts such as those fostered by this association. Some pobtical theorists foresee the red rag of revolu- tion, and talk wildly of the omnipotence ot the proletariat.
Sober and competent observers discount wiLd prophecies, and look hopefully to Parliament to work out a scheme of salvation _ for the unemployed and of care and disciplinary control of the unemployables. This problem figures largely in the general election in England to-day.
Though the visits of the moneyed to the moneyless is a healthy sign of the state ot public sentiment, there are still many places never penetrated by well to-do visitors, where lurid lights from the under-
world shine in ominous warning.
Among the stunted and starvling freqiienters of the Anarchist and Socialist clubs in the East-End of London can be heard the threats bom of dangerous prOpaganda. There congregate many different i types-idealists more or less broken in the machinery of modem conditions, men obsessed with enthusiasm, half crazy with theories of immediate social betterment who find inspiration in despair, and who in- toxicate themselves on revengeful dreams. They have no country; men of eyery nationality, they are united by a creed that, maintained with aposto'ic fervor, gains many recruits in times of distress.
Social workers on London's East side are therefore sounding the warning that it left alone in their misery, the half-starved, worklesB atoms in the slums may, by the forces of desperation, be brought into dangerous cohesion under the goadir* gibes
of reckless agitators.
SOCIAL OUTCASTS SLEEPING ON THE EMBANKMENT.
Day and night the Embankment by the side of the Thames is
the resting-place of many of London's homeless ?wanderer,
though it is at night that the horde gathers in full force
to receive tickets for food and shelter. The police often
have difficulty in rousing the starving slumbers.
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