The Louisiana cotton-boll. [volume] (Vermilionville [i.e. Lafayette], Attakapas, La.) 1872-1883, 1873-11-19
ENGLAND'S POOR.
The Dark Side Of English Life.

. Lecture by the Author of "Gin1's Baby"
The amazing vitality and wealth O
England t~ransfix the foreigner with as
constituent. The endless streets of no
l bic mansions in Belgravia and May Fair
the magnificence of the merchants, tin
shipping on the rivers, gives the specta
tor ideas of fabulous wealth, among
which it would seem impossible for
poverty to have n place. But there exists
q poverty and degradation so terrible
that it is a greater marvel than the
splendOr which covers it. I stood tho
other day gazing at the magnificent pile
of buildings in London erected on the
plans of England's greatest architects.
Where all these now stand, I used eight
years ago to visit week after week the
population of the artisan and labOring
classes. Here were alleys with ruGe
tenements occupied by families, each
occupying one room, The population
was SO dense that in n square were
1000 people. There was an innumerable
quantity of g%in-shops, which could not
be diminished by prayer-meetings, or
churches, or bibles. What use was it
to preach temperance and morality
where the circumstances made them not
merely self-denial, but martyrdom ?
But the government walked in and
showed out these people. Where were
they to go? They had to live neal their
work. The single ones got quartered
on families, occupying a share of the
room and q ninth of the bed. The
families got into cellars or ~encroached
on other families; got into holes like
spiders. Intolerable are the conditions
of life of a populaoe packed like that.
Health is simply a name for modified
disease. All they a r for is a nights
lodging. Most of them live in the
streets all day. You look at ahuge ami
NAL cruelty striking the thin creature
which strives to guide him ~homeward.
You see boys of ten or twelve with old,
hard faces and cunning eyes, taking
their brandy and cigars. Considering
how they all live, what is left to them
but to seek nepenthe in suicide or in
toxication? In England I have heard
deny these things, which existed
around the corner. This picture, you
say, is that of a philanthropist. 1t is
true of almost every district in London
where the poor congregate. 1t is true
not only Of London, but of hundreds
and thousands of other places. 1t is re-
that there are 26, 900 houses in
Liverpool occupied by families in single
that at least one-third of the
population of that city we're living in
that condition. What are their rooms
like? In rooms u feet and u feet high
lived eight persons, paying a rent of
four shlllings per week. Some of the
rooms are occupied by relays of human
animals. Persons attending at the thea
'ers let them out to market people who
oegin their work when the others cease.
can give worse examples than that.
sir James Simpson visited a man living
It the top Of the house in whose room
vas an enormous pig. He asked the
nan, Chow did this pig get up here?"
Sure" said hes che never was down"
Let us hasten to breathe the purer
If Of the country. There, amid clipped
the fields of wheat, where the
dwellings are covered with run
ing vines, there, at all events, you say,
shall find health and happiness. You
ak with the old, bent man, who is still
olling with the spade, and he takes you
0 his garrett, where he has slept with
even or eight others for Is or 20 years.
'r If you are a novelist, you may have
toriestold You of thevery depth of wick Q
dness of this fair country. Earning c
70 or three dollars per week, the fami- :
.es regularly fall back in the winter =
pom the poor rates. Such in many a
of England is the lot of those @
tho till the soil. Now when you con- 8
der these facts you may begin to think 3
f the problem that English reformers
ave to face. I a only say this If Il
on were to go out into the street and y
mink that every seventh man was re- $
help from your pocket, or one v
AN in every twenty of those you would
leet in the country, you mayimagine it. =,