The Sun.
London, England, 1868-03-10 00:00:00

THE SUN, LONDON, TUESDAY EVENING, MARCH 10, 1868.

DES7I7'UTION IN THE EAST OF LONDON

Civilization so interweaves all classes of a commu-
nity that the effect of a great monetary crisis passes
through every rank. As it descends in the scale it
creates more bodily suffering till it reaches the
labouring men in the shape of famine and utter
destitution, with all their train of evils. A capitalist
who has £lOO,OOO and loses half, receives a shock ;
a yearly income of a thousand pounds reduced to
five hundred entails disagreeable retrenchment; the
savings of a professional man or a trader swallowed
up may cause a pang; but the necessities of life are
still left to such persons, and the curtailment is in
luxuries alone. The case is very different when a
family is wholly deprived of the meankof existence.
A monetary crisis generally affects the more
wealthy in such a ratio, while the poor it may deprive
of bread and thus produce a scene of indescribable
misery. At a glance it is difficult to see the con-
nection between the collapse of OVEREND,:G URNEY,
and Co. and the distress in the East-end of Lon-
don. Many labourers now starving may have
derived a pleasurable excitement on that black
Friday when the crowds swayed to and fro in the
streets and lanes of the golden circle of the area
around the Bank of England. Though banks were
breaking and financial balloons collapsing, a work-
ing man fully employed at high wages might well
have failed to detect the cloud that had arisen to
disturb the serenity of his sky. The first effect
is to strike capital, or rather credit, which
appears to be capital, and sweep away the
flimsy structures that deceive the uninitiated
and even those who ought to have known better.
The proprietors of failed concerns, absorbed in their
own griefs, do not realise the after consequences of
the stoppage of the machinery they had set in
motion. The poor shareholders appear to them-
selves to be the only sufferers ; but if some of them
would take a tour through the East-end with an
agent of one of the societies now organized for re-
lieving the distress, they would learn who were the
chief sufferers. The great financial associations,
mainly the tools of contractors, acted as reservoirs
into which a section of the public poured their
savings, to be baled out for the works which the
contractors bad engaged to complete. These con-
tractors became the large employers of labour, and
when the reservoirs burst, they were deprived of
the means to continue their operations, the work-
men were discharged, and the present destitution
followed. The chief effect of the joint-stock mania
was to create an unhealthy demand for labour, which
brought together a plentiful supply. So long as
the delusion lasted everything went as merrily as a
marriage-bell ; but the greater the proportions it
assumed, and the longer it continued, the more
disastrous was the ultimate collapse. Nothing
generates more misery than a forced and unstable
industry. It acts in a similar manner as
placing a crowd in a desert and leaving them
there unaided, for it locates a community which,
when hopelessly committed to the locality and work,
finds its means of living cut away. The re-
sult is among the most deplorable of civiliza-
tion, involving not only the idle and thriftless, but
the most industrious. It is natural for workmen to
be attracted by high wages and abundant employ-
ment, and to settle where these are to be found.
They cannot be expected to work out problems
which puzzle political economists, and to see the in-
secure basis on which they rest. They accept their
good fortune as the cause of national prosperity, till
experience teaches them how ephemeral was the
employment, how unreal the prosperity. But—
what an experience I Not the mere collapse of a
factory nor the discharge of a few hands, nor a re-
duction of time or wages, but the annihilation of
their occupation. In cases of partial distress relief
is easy ; but when the whole community is reduced
to beggary, a gigantic effort is necessary to save the
people from positive starvation. Where all are in-
volved in a common ruin, the one cannot extend a
helping hand to another ; they are tied to the spot,
for there are no means of leaving it, and the first
effect is to appal those who make it their business
to search out cases of distress ; who shrink back be-
fore the horrible suffering and the hopelessness of
adequate relief. These agents tell tales that curdle
the blood ; they see sights, the memory of which,
accustomed as they are to misery, they carry to
their graves. For instance, the father of a family of
eight, huddled almost naked in a little room, died;
the mother was carried to an hospital, from which,
on her recovery, she returned to her lodging to find
all her children dead, and every scrap of furniture
taken by the landlord for the rent. In the pre-
sence of so awful a:calamitv, the one overwhelming
necessity remains, of feeding the mass during the
present pressure, and trusting to PROVIDENCE for the
rest. Doubtless it is hard for those who have suf-
fered severe pecuniary loss by the crisis to be
called on to undertake so heavy a burden ; but they
should not forget that it is, in a measure, owing to
the collapse of their ill-digested schemes that this
distress is due. Employers often receive no small
meed of praise for the good that results from their
enterprises—for the benefit that accrues to hundreds
who derive the means of living from the capital
they put into motion ; and if they can legitimately
take credit for this, they have a right to bear no
small portion of the blame, when their enterprises
end in such misery and disaster. In this case it
was the public who were the employers ; those, who
hoped to secure large gains from joint-stock under-
takings though they not only suffered severe losses
from such schemes, but indirectly involved these
poor people in the ruin. It is, therefore, the more
incumbent on them to come to their aid, and to
answer the appeals now made everywhere in Lon-
) don for the means, for a brief season, of keeping
their fellow-creatures from starvation. A committee
is in operation at No. 7, Adam-street, Adelphi, to
receive and disburse such contributions, and most
of the clergymen in the east of the metropolis
are engaged in the work. The commercial collapse
has been general over the globe, and the destitution
which has now reached the poorer classes is as
general. It will be found to be in proportion to
the false stimulant applied to industry, which in
London reached its climax. America could not
fail to be deeply affected ; but the great breadth of
waste and fertile lands there quickly insures a
remedy. It is, however, the case that the destitu-
tion in New York is greater than ever known
before. When those who have lost hope in Europe
seek a refuge in the New World after all, but the
money for their passage is gone, they now land in
a country where trade is almost as stagnant as here,
and starve there only in a lesser degree. The
prospect is not encouraging; but good often, we
know not how, results. It is through such fiery
trials that men are purified and saved, and the
visiting clergy report an amazing work of regenera-
tion now progressing on the scene of so much
suffering in the East. The more prosperous classes
should be thankful that events have taken this
turn, and aid it by means even involving sac-
rifices ; for such are the seasons of revolution,
when it often happens that kingdoms are over-
thrown and governments subverted.—Anglo-Ame-
rican limes.

In January transfers of more than $8,000,000
worth of real estate were made in New York city. One
hundred valuable lots near the Central park, which had
been in the owner's family since 1769, wore sold at fabu-
lous prices.
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