The Sedalia weekly bazoo. [volume] (Sedalia, Mo.) 187?-1904, 1884-01-15
The Slums of London.

The Slums of London.
On Saturday night, says writer
in tie London News, The public
houses and gin palaces take in one,
fourth OF the daily earnings OF tie
denizens of the Sums for a week
Enter thu public houses and you will
$, e them crammed. Here are artisans
end laborers drinking away their
wages that ought to clothe their little
on-s. Here are women squander-
ing the money that would purchase
food, for the lack of which their
children are dying. One group rlvets
the eye of an observer al once. IL
contaius an old preyhaired dame, a
woman of forty and a girl of abou'
nineteen. with baby in her arms.
All these are in stare which is best
described as mauilih-they have fin-
ished one lot of gin. ard the youngest
women is ordering another round.
1t is grest-grandmOiher, grand
mother. and mother and her baby
four generations together ard the, are
all dirty and dishevelled and drunk,
except tie baby, and even that poor
little mite NAV have its first tate OF
alcohol presently. 1t is no uncommon
sight in these places To see a mother
va baby's lips with III ami water.
The process lie called giving the
Young un' a 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 a low
ne ghbnrho"d. is after the houses are
closed. Then you meet dozens OF
poor wretches Keeling home to their
mis-. rahle dens. Some of them roll
across the railway aud fall, cutting
themselves till the blood flows. Every
penny, i'm some instances, has gone IN
drink. One dilapinated, ragged
wretch ! met last Saturday night was
guawing a baked potato. By his side
stood a thinly clad woman, bearing a
baby in her arms, and in hideous
language she reproached him for his
selfi,hness. She had fetched him
out of a public house with his last
half.penny 10 bis pocket. With that
half penny he had bought the potato,
which he refused to share with Der.
Al every corner, the police are
ordering or cOaxing Men and women
to u We on. Between twelve and one
it is long procession of drunken men
and women, and the most drunken
seem to he those whose outward APP
pearance betokens the most a6jecI
poverty.
Turn out of the main thOroughfares
aud iuto the dimly lighted back
streets, and you come upon scene at
ter scene to the grim, grotesque hor-
ror of which only the pencil of a Dore
could do justice. Women with hid
eous, distorted faces are rolling from
side to side shrieking aloud snatches of
popular songs. plentifully interlarded
with the vilest expressions. Men as
drunk as themselves meet them; there
is a short interchange of ribsld jests
end foul oaihs, then a quarrel and a
shower of blows. Down from one
dark court rings cry of murder, aud
a woman, her face hideously gashed,
makes across the narrow road, pur-
sued by bowling mailman. 1t l.
only a drunken husband having row
with his wife. Far into the small
hours such cries will ring here. now
that of an injured wife, now that of a
drunken fool trapped into den of in
fanny to he robbed and hurled into the
street by the professional bully who
resides on the premises. As you pass
the open doors of some of the houses
you may hear heavy thud and a
groan, and then stiffness. 1t is only a
drunken man, Who staggering up the
staircase to the attic, has Missed bis
footing and fallen heavily.
Spend any Saturday night you like
in a slum, and then say if one-tenth of