The Sun.
London, England, 1858-10-16 00:00:00

LITERATURE.

Dives . and Lazarus. Judd and Glass, New
Bridge-street.

This little work professes to narrate the adven.
tures " of an obscure medical man, in a low neigh-
bourhood." It is a simple and excellent method for
telling the sorrows of the sick poor in the crowded
courts and narrow alleys of London. The medical
man,'in virtue of his profession, is everywhere ad-
missible, and he sees their sufferings in their most
painful aspect. He sees the melancholy cases where
the father of a family leaves his widow and children
without any provision, often in debt fromhis illness;
where diseases or accidents, sufficientl/ terrible
to those who have the comforts of life, aVe to be
borne with an uncertain supply of the barest neces-
saries, and where the close and crowded neighbour-
hood, the bad air and bad food, help to produce ill-
mess, whose victim is unable to quit their evil in-
fluences. All this is forcibly and simply portrayed
in the little volume before us. Of course, the writer
does not pretend to say that all the sufferings of
the poor are independent of their own conduct; but
are there so many of the upper and middle classes
who carefully regulate their expenditure within
their income, and in times of prosperity lay by
enough for a commercial panic and a suitable pro-
vision for their families, that we should judge
harshly those who have to maintain six or eight
persons on 12s. or 15s. a-week, without education
or example to teach them prudence ? The follow-
ing passage states forcibly the miseries entailed for
want of better lodging-houses—an evil that might
be remedied :

" As it will greatly assist me in my argument, I will
admit nearly all you state of the condition of the working
classes to be correct—at least of a large portion of them ;
but I maintain they are the victims of an infamous code of
laws, and that, bad as their morals may be, those of the
higher classes are equally open to reprobation. You taunt
them with their love of the public-house, and that "of their
wives and children for the minor theatres. You might go
still further, and name the penny theatres--though, thanks
to the vigilance of the police, very few of them are to be
found in; the present day. Let me ask what other amuse-
ments are openLto them ? ' Home 1' perhaps, you wank'
say ? Go into one of their homes—l speak of that of the
labourer—and what do you find it ? A foetid small room
is, perhaps, all the accommodation they can obtain for four
or five individuals. Sometimes I have seen eight in a room
not more than ten feet square. It is impossible to stop
demoralisation in these crowded dwellings ; and isnot that,
may I ask, the fault of the Legislature ? Has any im-
provement taken place in Londonj of which one of its ob-
jects at least, if not the only one, has been to drive the poor
man from his home ? While the population was increas-
ing rapidly, during the last half-century, was any accom-
modation made for their reception ? No ; during that time,
thousands—ay, tens of thousands—of their dwellings were
destroyed by successive acts of the Legislature ; and have
one hundred been rebuilt ? Has one act of Parliament bees
passed to oblige the wealthy to build fit and proper habita-
tions for them ? In one parish (Whitechapel), in twenty
yews the population had increased by twelve thousand
souls ; but, during that time, two thousand houses of the
poor had been destroyed, and not twenty of them have been
rebuilt. The nobleman, if he turns his dogs from one
kennel, sees that another is provided for them. He, by
birth, is a legislator ; has he ever shown a like considera-
tion for the poor of the metropolis ? Trace the amount of
demoralisation it has occasioned, and then say whether the
blame lies with the Legislature or the poor. Consider the
crowded state they must be in, and is it to be wondered
that the father leaves the house if he has the opportunity
Poverty naturally takes to the gin-shop. There is gaiety,
light, and warmth in the tap-room, and temporary happi..
ness—or, with many of them, its equivalent—oblivion in
the gin."
There is much interest in some of the sketches,
which are written with ability and straightforward-
ness, and the work is likely to be of effectual ser-
vice, by bringing forcibly before the rich and
thoughtless the sufferings of their poorer fellow-
countrymen.