Alexandria gazette. [volume] (Alexandria, D.C.) 1834-1974, 1884-08-28
THE sLuMS OF LONDON

Saturday night the public houses and gin
palaces take in nefourth of the daily earn.
ings of the GeniZens of the slums TOR a
week. Enter the public houses and you
will see them crammed. Here are artisans
and laborers drinking away wages that
ought TO clo;he little ones. Here are wo-
men squaudering money that would pur-
chase food, for the lack Of which their chill
dren are dying. One group rivets the eye
of the observer at once. 1t consists ofan
old, gray-haired dame, Il woman Of forty,
and girl of about nineteen, with u baby in
her arms. All these are in state best de-
scribed as "maudlin"-they have finished
one lot of gin and the youngest woman is
ordering another round. 1t is u great. grand
mother, grandm other and mother and her
baby-four generations together-and they
are all dirty and dishevelled and drunk, ex.
cept the baby, and even that poor little
mite may have its first taste Of alcohol pres
emily. 1t is no uncommon sight in these
places to see mother wet babys lips
with gin and water The process is called
giving the young 'un taste," and the
baby's father will look on sometimes and
enjoy the joke immensely. But the time to
see the result of a Saturday nights heavy
drinking in low neighborhood is after the
houses are closed. Then you meet dozens
of poor wretches reeling home to their mis-
erable dens. Some Of them roll across the
roadway and fall, cutting themselves till
the blood flows. Every penny, in some in
stances has gone in drink. One dilapidated,
ragged wretch l met one Saturday night
| was gnawing q baked potato. BY his side
stood q thinly clad woman bearing baby
in her arms, and in hideous language she re-
preached him for his selfshness. She had
fetched him out of a public house with his
last half-penny in his pocket. With that
half.penny he had bought the potato, which
he had refused to share with her. Atevery
corner the police are coaxing men and wo-
men to ''move on" Between - and il -is
a long procession of drunken men nau wo-
men, and the most drunken seem TO be thnssff nsf
whose outward ans 81 PffH ihe main thor
aplIcs CEinto the dimly lighted back
otrenta sild you come upon scene after scene
.o &c grim grotesque horrors Of which only
yie nc pencil of a Dore could do justice. Wo-
men with hideous, distorted faces are rolling
from side to side, shrieking aloud snatches
of popular songs, plentifully interlarded
with the vlest expressions. Men as drunk
as themselves meet them there is u short
interchange of ribald jests and foul oa'hs,
then IL quarrel and shower OF blows.
Down from one dark court rings u cry oil
murder, and woman, her face hideously
gashed, makes across the narrow road, pur-
sued by bowling madman. 1t is only
drunken husband having row with MS
wife. Far into the small hours such cries
will ring here, now that of an injured wife,
now that of Il drunken fool trapped into a
den Of inlamy, to be robbed and hurled into
the street by the professional bully who re.
sides on the premises. AS you pass the
opeu doors Of some Of the houses you may
hear heavy thud and groan, and then
stiffness. II is only drunken man who,
staggering up the staircase to his attic, has
missed his footing and has fallen heavily
London Ncrs