River Falls journal. [volume] (River Falls, Pierce County, Wis.) 1872-2019, 1876-10-19
EDINBURG.
Tenement House Life-ShOcking Condition of
the Pauper Population.

Tenement House Life-ShOcking Condition of
the Pauper Formulation.
Correspondence New York Graphic
You've beautiful town, said to
prominent citizen of literary procliv-
titles, who was hurrying out of town
10 escape from the Albert Memorial
celebration.
AVE. beautiful enough, he replied,
'.if YOU look on the outside, but it's a
whited sepulchre and nothing else.
There is a deal of wickedness hidden
away"
Il thought you Scotch were highly
moral PEOPLE" | rejoined.
And 50 we are. It's the Irish that
come over here and make mischief"
How the Scotch hate their Celtic
neighbors There is no love thrown
away upon the English. The conquer
ed are not in the habit of wasting
much affection on their conquerors,
and nothing enrages aScotchman more
than TO be taken for an Englishman
but he remembers that Scotland gave
England King, and that the Queen of
Great Britain passes most of her time
in the Highlands, booming Ministers
and dispatch-agents thirty-siX hours
! of hard railroad travel in order to ob.
tain an audience with the head of the
Government.
| did not dream the feeling Of ma
| tiOnality was SO strong until faced it,
yet it pales into nothingness VIXEN
| compared with the intense luminosity
/ towards the Irish.
DESTROYS of learning whether the
vice of Edinburg was due to a foreign
element, | made inquiries, and had
placed in my hands "a phamphlet pub
lished in 1869 by the well-known book
sellers, Edmonston & Douglas, and
written by the author of ''The English
woman in America Therein learn
| ed a different story. The writer had
/ visited the worst slumS of London,
| Quebec, New York. and other towns
| in both Europe and America, and SOL
EMMY declares that there are Stata of
minery and moral degradation under
! the shadow of st. Giles crown and
within sight of John knoX's house
more concentrated and unbroken than
are to be met elsewhere. In this
opinion the Rev. r. Mcguire, Rector
of st. James, Clerkenwell. cOncurs.
Here, the very score of vicious
wretchedness is the High street, with
/ Hollywood Palace at one end, and the
hiCh-hanging, picturesque Castle at
! the other; with the courts of law, the
/ Parliament House, the City Chamber,
! the assembly halls of the Established
and Free Churches, the Cathedral, and
other prominent buildings studded
down the whole of it's length. When
the Old Town constituted the principal
part of Edinburg, High street was the
most aristocratic quarter. Now it is
| called the Via Dolorosa. Yet it is still
| by necessity of position. a great thor
Oughfare, through which Royalty or
| its representative must needs pass.
''Of all the dark and dcsolate places of
the earth, the Old Town is about the
! darkest and most desolate, writes the
Rev. Mr.. Mcguire.
From report made on the condition
| of the poorer classes in Edinburg, is
sued in 1868, learn that the pOpula-
| ton Of village is crammed into the
six or seven stories of one house.
! These tenements are dark, dirty, and
are never repaired. They are without
gas, or water-pipeS. or sinks, or tenn
/ pOraTy receptacle for ashes. The only
entrance to them is by one long, dark,
stone stair, and they return the enor-
nous profits to their humane owners
of from 40 to 60 per cent. One roof
| covers population Of 30, 248, or 800
persons, living in frightful dens, I'M
ventilated, and often without direct
| light 5000 families, comprising not
only the vicious and abiect, but large
numbers of the poorer laboring classes,
/ live in single rooms, and of these sim
! gle rooms, $50 are inhabited by from
! six to sixteen persons. According to
| the preceding census, 100 of these
| shelters were reported to be without
! windows, and 900 were damp, dark
cellars. I'm this vile way are housed
! Go, 900 persons. or more than One-third
of the population of the wonderfully
beautiful town of Edinburgh.
! Facts are stubborn-stubborn as
! John Knox, opposite whose house is
the well which supplies High street
/ with water. Under the house of the
/ great reformer is whisky shop; and
! those who see how difficult of access is
the well, and what slaves it makes of
I feeble or delicate women, can hardly
wonder that large percentage of the
! population should take more kindly to
! whisky than water. lit is impossible
for these people to be clean in their
/ dwellings, clothes, OF persons under
present circumstances. declares the
/ writer of Notes on Old Edinburg."
"Oh God only knows what it is to
slave after the water! 1t is killing
me and. in the glen we came from,
/ the bonny burn stream ran by the
door" Such were the words of poor
woman sobbing at the thought of the
misery about her. Mind you all these
people are Scotch, not Irish, as my
| friend intimated when calling Edin-
burgh a whited sepulchre. Many of
| them are as honest as they are poor.
Missionaries ana medical men appeal
to the rich in vain. The same houses
! if quilted from cellar to roof. and sup
piled with water and gas. and recep-
table for rubbish, would yield a certain
return of from s to 10 per cent.
DR.. Foules has proved that philan-
thropy can be made to pay by renno-
waiting Warden $ Close, in the Grass
market. The restored building, now
rendered habitable to human beings.
returns l4per cent.
This is little comp red with the 40
and Go per cent. wrung out of the mis-
cradle wretches in High street, Cow
gate, and Cannongate but. when it is
remembered that consols pay far less,
and that the Kingdom of great Britain
has lost 600, 600. GOO in foreign secur-
tiles that yielded more moderate in
terest, it seems incredible that the
moneyed class of a town like Edin
burg should not see the duty and
the righteous speculation that lie next
them.