Morning journal and courier., 1884-12-03

The Tenement House Question - Rabbit Pnlifng's - Rfrd Sharing i'm the Suburbs The Board schools - Other Agencies for Good.
 LONDON, Nov. 1. To the Editor of the JOURNAL AND COURIER:
 The London slums have undergone thor 1 ough purging since the days when Charles
 Dickens wandered about them in search of l subjects for his inimitabIe character sketches. Petticoat Lane, the Seven Dials New Gut,
 and the Mile End Waste generally are only "reminiscences now of what they once were; and there is something almost saddening in
 this reflection, for important as is the gain of
 humanity by the change, these unsavory localities have been invested by pen and pen
 cil in the past with certain very charm and picturesqueness of ipiquity. We almost l feel as if we had been swind1ed out of an ex- l hilarating experience we ramble to-day ! among the byways made historic by atroci- I ties in the past, and enjoy no molestation whatever. Yet there is enough of both pow ! erty and crime in London to-day to appal l even those who are somewhat accustomed l to the poverty and crime of large cities in 1 other countries. As have trod the classic | ! commemorated in Madame Tussaud's s l Chamber of Horrors were wont to come and go, have witnessed many phases of life which were sufficiently novel, if not as start l ling as those which might have been witness I ed quarter of a century ago; and some of | these phases of slum life it has occurred to me to photograph in the present letter for the i benefit of your readers. Even modern Lon don has it's apostles of Dickens, who delight ! in the study of third-elass humanity, and | occasionally give the result of their research es to the world in the shape of ephemeral publications. Foremost among these is George R. Sims, whose name is associated with 1.-The Bitter Cry of Outcast London, , "How the Poor Live, and or two simi- l lar pamphlets. MT. Sims has also acquired l celebrity by the hand which he has had in
 manufacturing melodramas, especially such as illustrate low life here, Lights o'Lon- don" ''In the Ranks D etc. MT. Sims is un- doubtedly entitled to much credit for the good work which he has done in exposing the evils that exist in the densely populated parts of the English capital, and calling so vigor- ously upon legislative authority to remedy them as far as possible; but his name is not to be mentioned in the same literary cate gory as that of Dickens, or scarcely in any literary category at aA=a-EveR his later writ ings are verbose and amateurish, to painful extreme, and the reader only persists in wading through them on account of the stam ps of palpable earnestness and painstak- ing which they bear. Indeed, so zealous have been his endeavors in the good cause of remedying such, evils as are remediable, that both church and State have given them rec ognition in a substantial way, as I may have occasion to show further on.
 As everyone is aware, the West End of London is a proverb for wealth and fashion, while the East End is, antithetically, a prov erb for poverty and squalor. It is, however, singular fact that you have only to walk four minutes away from of the most opulent quarters of the city in order to find yourself surrounded by monumental indi- gence. To the American it is a source of 1 mingled wonder and pain that any represen- tatiyes of the Anglo-Saxon race to which he belongs can fathom such depths and scale such heights of poverty as do the London poor. Industrious poverty is even more per picking than the thriftless poverty. The cheap fairs and bazaars eclipse anything of the sort that have even seen in our Ameri- can cities, and my life has not been that of a hothouse plant either. Fancy the infnites- simal profit derived from the sale of farthing l toys or penny lunches! That the gulf be- tween the middle and the lower classes in London should be so much greater than it is 1 in New York or Chicago must be measurably due to the atmosphere of caste which char acterizes the empires of the old world, where l by the strate of society are so distinct and independent of each other. Most of the poor 1 live in the heart of the city, on account of the long distances between the suburbs and 1 the neighborhoods where they must pursue l their living (of course employ the term city 1 in it's American sense). Apartments might be procured in the suburbs for equal or less money that would be far more comfortable l than those in the crowded noisome London 1 tenements; but the added expense of trans | portation to and from town would more than ! neutralize the gain. The dark, foul holes ! which house the class referred to, bring in 8 1 rental of from two and half to five shilIings | a week. The question of improving these tenements occupied by "outcast London" is 1 8 very delicate one for several reasons It is | difficult to enlist the attention of proprietors l to the subject of improving their establish i ments while the process of authoritatively condemning any pile of buildings amounts to fresh attack upon the occupants, inasmuch 1 as they will only be driven to equally vile quarters that have a disadvantage of being
 more remote. If new, decent building 1 were to supplant the ricketty existing ten
 ement the prices asked for rooms would be
 beyond the purses of the poor, so that they 1 would have to seek other accommodations
 which are already overcrowded There is {
 considerable percentage of the 40, GOO regis
 tered paupers in the city that have not ever ! filthy attic in which to sleep; and these
 
 l es along the Thames embankment, and il 1 other public promenades which are no
 locked at night. Plenty of landlords ar
 pointed out as having waxed wealthy off rent l accruing from these tenement deathtraps 1 and low as is the rent, it is almost alway 1 more than an equivalent for the accommoda
 tions enjoyed.
 Of course this packing of the honest ant dishonest poor indiscriminately together i
 the infallible means of perpetuating crime
 This is the most pitiful fact connected witt } 1 the subject in question, that the housing O beggars, criminals, dissolute men, virtueles women, idiots, cripples, invalids, and dozen forms of brute life should be unde one roof. It is from such reservoir of mis
 cellaneous iniquity that the fiery of the chil l dren, '' which Mrs. Browning sought to voice , l wells up most plaintively. If a child cal |, l grow up in such an unwholesome atmospher without becoming morally dwarfed an
 ! blighted, it is indeed as @ brand snatchet ! from the burning. This is the phase of tn
 subject which should be pressed home upo1
 the attention of legislators and taxpayers As long nothing is done to ameiorate tn
 evils of this packing system, the moral de struction of the next generation is inevitable
 and there can be no decrease in the taxe 1 levied to meet the cost of crime to the State l Many bright mission scholar has to liv
 where he or she must witness drunken row
 daily, and sleep at night in the same apart ! menu WlUH 6 OOHhey, GWO UT tuT6e cdtS dI(
 dogs, and perhaps the vicious human prey
 that has been snared by an inhuman mother
 Yet withal, how patient and well-behaved ar'
 these London masses! Year after year they
 live on, laboring and enduring, without evel
 initiating the bloody work of merciles European communes.
 The painful forms of industry by whicI
 the poor win their daily bread are many
 None draws out my sympathies more thar
 that of ''rabbit-pulling. This occupation
 consists in removing the loose fluff anddown
 from rabbit skins in order to prepare them
 for the furrier, who will most likely dye
 them, and sell them as much rarer skins.
 This occupation is usually carried on at the
 home of the pu1lers, in the one room which
 constitutes sleeping, living, and dining room
 If you looked into such room, you would
 wonder how human existence can be pro
 longed within its walls. Windows, floor
 ceilings, walls, and every one of the scanty
 articles of furniture in the room, not to say
 the eyes, hair and clothing of the occupants
 themselves, will be thickly coated with the
 loose particles of down Many young women
 earn their living by this business, receiving l as compensation from four to six shi1lings ] per week when the times are good. Unless !