The Pulaski citizen. [volume] (Pulaski, Tenn.) 1866-current, 1873-11-13
maLAND.s POOR.

The Dark sids OF EnEIlsh Life.
Leisure BY the Author Of "Ginx's Baby"
The amazing vitality and wealth OF
England transfx the foreigner with as
constituent. The endless streets Of no
bic mansions in Belgravia and May Fair,
the magnifcenee of the merchants, the
shipping on the rivers, gives the specta-
tor ideas of fabulous wealth, among
which it would seem Impossible for
poverty to have a place. But there exists
a poverty and degradation so terrible
that it is a greater marvel than the
splendor which covers it. I stood the
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 rude
tenements occupied by families, each
occupying one room. The population
was SO dense that in one square were
1900 people. There was an innumerable
quantity of gin-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 near their
work. The single ones got quartered
on families, occupying a share of the
room and a 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 pOpulAce packed like that.
Health is simply name for modified
disease. All they care 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
men deny these things, which existed
around the corner. This picture, you
say, is that of phllanthropist. 1t is
true of almost every district in London
where the poor congegate. 1t is true
not only of London, but of hundreds
and thousands of other places. It is re-
ported that there are 26, 900 houses in
Liverpool occupied by families in single
rooms that at least one-third of the
population of that city were living in
that condition. What are their rooms
like? In rooms II feet and u feet high
lived eight persons, paying a rent of
four shihings per week. Some of the
rooms are occupied by relays of human
animals. Persons attending at the thea
ters let them out to market people who
begin their work when the others cease.
We can give worse examples than that.
Sir James Simpson visited man living
at the top of the house in whose room
was an enormous pig. He asked the
man, 81 How did this pig get up here?"
"Sure, said he, she never was down. F"
Let us hasten to breathe the purer
air Of the country. There, amid clipped
hedges, the fields of wheat, where the
meanest dwellings are covered with run
ming vines, there, at all events, you say,
we shall find health and happiness. You
talk with the old, bent man, who is still
toiling with the spade, and he takes you
to his garnet, where he has slept with
| seven or eight others for Is or 20 years.
Or if you are a novelist, you may have
stories told YOU of thevery depth of wick
edness of this fair country. Earning
two or three dollars per week, the fami-
lies regularly fall back in the winter
upon the poor rates. Such in many a
country of England is the lot of those
who till the soil. Now when you con-
slider these facts you may begin to think
of the problem that English reformers
have to face. can only say this If
you were to go out into the street and
think that every seventh man was re-
ceiving help from your pocket, or one
man in every twenty of those you would
meet In the country, you mayimsgine it.