News and citizen. [volume] (Morrisville, Vt. ;) 1881-current, 1883-12-13

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mains that, secthing in the very center
of great English cities, concealed by the
thinnest crust of decency, Is a vast mass
of moral corruption, of heart breaking
misery and absolute godlessness.
Few have any adequate conception of
what the pestilential human roOkeries
are where tens of thousands of the Lon
don poor are crowded together To get
INTO them, you have to penetrate courts
reeklng with poisonous and malOdorOus
gases arising from accommodations of sew
age and refuse scattered in all directions
and often flowing beneath your feet :;
courts which the sun never penetrates,
and which are never visited by a breath
of fresh air. You have to ascend rotten
stalrcases, which in some places have al
ready broken down, leaving gaps which
imperil the limbs and lives of the I'M
wary. You have to 9rope your way
along filthy passages swarming with YER
min. If you are not driven back by the
lntolerabIe stencil, You may gain admit
lance to the denS III which these thou
sands Of beings herd together.
Should you ascend to the attic. you
find that the sickly air which finds its
way into the room has to pass over the
putrefying carcasses of dead cats, or birds,
or viler denominations still Here Is a
hole in the wall which has been repaired
by the landlord. He has done it by
mailing q few pieces of an old sOap-bOx
over the place, and for this has put
threepence a week upon the rent. This
Is the best paying property in London.
Three shilling, four and sixpence, and
as much as six shillings a week are
readily paid for one of these horrible
rooms. Houses that have been con-
demned by the authorities as unfit for
habltatiOn are very gold mines to sleek
spectators, who fatten upon the wretch
edness of the poor.
Every room IN these tenement houses
a family-oiten two In one cellar have
been found a father, mother, three chill
dren and four pigs In another room
Is man i'll with smallpox, his wife Just
recovering from her eighth confinement,
and the children running about half
naked and covered with dirt. Here are
seven people living III one underground
kitchen, and little dead child lying in
the same room. Another apartment
contains father, mother and six children,
two of whom are i'll with scarlet fever
In another nine brothers and sisters
from twenty-nine wears of age down
ward, live, eat and sleep together. Here
is mother who turns her children into
the street IN the early evening, because
she lets her room for immoral purposes
until long after midnight. Here you
are chuked as You enter by the air laden
with particles of the superhuous fur
pulled from the skins OF rabbits, rats,
dogs and other animals in their prcpara-
non Tor the furTier. Here the smell of
paste and of drying match-bOxes, min
Cling with other sickIyodors, Overpowers
you; or it may be the fragrance of stale
fish or vegetables, not sold on the preyi-
Gus day, and kept in the room over
night. Who can wonder that young
girls wander off into alife of immortality
Who can wonder thar the public house
should be 1.-THE Elysian field of the tired
toiIer ?"
immortality is but the natural out
come. Marriage as an institution is not
fashionable in these districts" And
this is only the bare truth. Ask if the
men and women living together in these
roOkeries are married, and your simple
ity will cause a smile. Nobody knows.
Nobody cares. Nobody expects that
they are. The only check upon com
munism IN this regard is jealousy and
not virtue. In one street are thirty-five
houses, thirty-twO of which are broth
els, In another district are forty three
of these houses, and four hundred and
tweuty-eight fallen women and girls,
many of them not more than twelve
years of age. \ neighborhOOd whose
population Is returned at 10, 900 contains
four hundred who follow this immoral
traffic, their ages varying from thirteen
to fifty An East End missionary rcs-
cued young girl from an immoral life,
and obtained for her a situation with
people who were going abroad He saw
her to southampton, and on his return
was violently abused by the girls grand
mother, who had the sympathy of her
neighbOrs, for having taken away from
a poor old woman her means of subsis
tenca.
The misery and sin caused by drink in
these districts have often been told. In
the district Of EustOn road is one public
house to every one hundred people,
counting men, women and children.
Immediately around one chapel in Lei
cester square are one hundred gin pala
ces, most of them very large. These
districts are but samples of what exists
in all the localities which we have iuves-
tigated. Look into one of these glitter
ing saloons, with its motley, miserable
crowd, and you may be Mortified as you
think of the evil that is nightly wrought
there; but contrast it with any of the
abOdes which You find in these fetid
courts and you will wonder no longer
that it is crowded.
A child seven years old may easily
make three dollars week by thieving
but what can he earn by such work as
match-bO making, for which five cents
a gross IS paid, and the makers have to
find their own fire for drying the boxes,
paste and string? Before he can gain
as much as the young thief he must make
ffty-siX gross of match-boxes a week, or
/ 1886 day, which isl impossible. Women
for the work Of trousers-fnisbing receive
five cents pair, and have to fluid their
own thread. For making mems shirts
they are paid twenty cents a dozen lawn
tennis aprons, SIX cents a dozen; babies
hoods, from thirty-six to sixty cents a
dozen. Here is a woman who has a sick
husband and little one to look after. She
Is employed at shirt finishing at six cents
a dozen, and by the utmost effort can
only earn twelve cents a day, out of
The child misery Is most heTtre"d-
ing and appalling Not the least is the
misery inherited from the vice of
drunken and dissoldte parents, and
manifest in the stunted, misshauen and
often loathsome objects constantly met
in these localities. Here IS one Of three
years old picking up some dirty pieces
of bread and eating them. We 60 In 1T
the door aud find little girl twelve
years old.
"Where is your mOther?'
''In the mad-hUusc.'
Chow long has she been there ?"
Fifteen months"
"Who looks after you ?"
The child, who was sitting ut the table
making match-boxes, replies:
81 look after my little brothers and
sisters as well as | can.
"Where Is your father?"
''He has been ont of work three
weeks, but he has gone to job Of two
days this morning"
Another house visited contained nine
motherless children. The mothers
death was caused by witnessing one Of
her children being run over. The eldest
was only fourteen years old. All lived
in one small room, and there was one
bed for i've. Here is poor woman de
serted by her husband and left with
three little children. One met with an
accident a few days ago, and broke his
arm. Aud here, in a cellar kitchen, are
nine LITTLE ones without food and scarcely