The Douglas independent. [volume] (Roseburg, Or.) 187?-1885, 1884-04-05
LONDoN'S GIN-PALAcEs.
scenes In the Great Cityss Thorough.
fare--.The Depths OF Human Hid.

NO0SneSSs
[G. R. Sims in London News
A Saturday night in the great
thoroughfare adjacent thera are three
corner public houses which take as much
money as the whole of the other shops
on both sides of the way put together.
Butchers, bakers, greengrocers, cloth
iers, furniture dealers, all the caterers
for the wants of the populace, are open
till late hour; there are hundreds o.
them trading round and about, but the
whole lot do not take as much money
as three publicans-that is a fact
CHASTITY enough in all conscience. Enter
the public houses and you will see them
crammed. Here are artisans and labor
ers drinking away the wages that ought
to clothe their little ones Here are
the women squandering the money that
would purchase food for the lack of
which their children are dying.
One group rivets the eye of an OBJ
server at once. 1t consists of an old
gray haired dame, woman of 40, and
girl of about 19 with baby in her
arms All these are in a state which is
best described as 'maudlin" they have
finished one lot of gin, and the young
est woman is ordering another round.
1t IS great grandmother, grandmother
and mother and her baby--four gen.
erations together-and they are all
dirty, dishevelled, and drunk, except
the baby, and even the poor little mite
may have its first taste of alcohol pres
emily. 1t is no uncommon sight in
these places to see mother wet a
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 i'm
mensely.
But the time to see the result of q
Saturday nights heavy drinking in a
low neighborhood is after the houses
are closed. Then you meet dozens of
poor wretches reeling home to their
miserable dens, some of them rolling
across the roadway and falling, cutting
themselves till the blood flows Every
penny in some instances has gone in
drink.
One dilapidated, ragged wretch Imet
last Saturday night was gnawing a
baked potato. BY his side stood thin
clad woman bearing baby in her arms,
and in hideous language she reproached
him for his selishness. She had
fetched him out of public house with
his last halfpenny in his pocket. With
that halfpenny he had bought the
potato, which he refused to share with
her. At every corner the police are
ordering or coaxing men or women to
"move on.' Between Y and | it is a
long procession of drunken men and
women, and the most drunken seem to
be those whose outward appearance
betokens the most abject poverty.
Turn out of the main thoroughfare
and into the dimly-lighted street and
you come upon scene after scene to the
grim, grotesque horror of which only
the pencil of Dore could do justice.
Women with hideous distorted faces are
rolling from side to side shrieking
aloud snatches of popular songs plenti-
fully interlarded with the vilest express
sions. Men as drunk as themselves
meet them, there is short interchange
of ribald jests and foul oaths, then a
quarrel and shower of blows. Down
from one dark court rings cry of muir
der, and woman, her face hideously
gashed. makes across the narrow road
pursued by bowling madman. It is
only drunken husband having row
with his wife.