Springfield daily republic. [volume] (Springfield, O. [Ohio]) 1887-1888, 1888-03-24

small apples seiIing nj from four 10 eIgnt
| cents pound are more than the fruit of a
| backward season and an inferior tree Plums
are plentyup to November, but, like the ap-
pies, they lack flavor and sweetness, and so
with peas In short, English fruit struggles
| for existence, and ripens under almost sun
| less Skies and the reSdlt is really better than
might be expected, but never particularly
satisfactory.
1t is the flower market to which one turns
with certainty gained at once that no dis
appointment follows intimate acquaintance
with English flowers There are exotics for
those who will, but it is not to them that one
turns 1t is to the hundreds upon hundreds
of flower pots, i'll which grow roses and ger
aniums and mignonette and a score of old
fashioned but forever beloved names Great
punches of mignorette for penny, and lesser
punches of sweet odors for the same coin.
while the violets have rows of baskets to
themselves, as indeed they need, for scores of
buyers flock about them. Little buyers chiefly,
with tangled hair and bare feet, and the
purchase money tied in some corner of their
rags for they buy to sell again, and, having
tramped miles it may be to this fountain
head, will tramp other miles before night
COllltS, iiitIt way altey
and under sunless doorways, crying "Violets!
sweet violets,r as they were cried in Herrick's
time A ha'penny will buy one of the tiny
punches which they have made up with swift
fingers and they are bought even by the
poorest, how, heaven only knows. But in
cracked jug or battered tin the bunch of
violets sweetens the foul air, or the bit of
mignonette grows and even thrives, where
human kind cannot.
So, though Covent Garden has in winter
''ilowers at guineas apiece, pineapples at
guiIeas n pound and peas at guineas a
quart" these for the rich only, it has also its
possibilities for the poor They throng about
it at all times, for there is always chance of
some stray orange or apple or rejected
vegetable that Will help out a meal They
throng above all in these terrible days when
the ''unemployed' are huddling under arches
and in dark places where they lay their
homeless heads, and wher. in the hours be
tween night and morning the cocoa rooms
open for the hungry drivers of the big vans,
who pour down great mugs of coffee and
cocoa and make away with mountains of
bread and butter A penny gives small
mug of cocoa and a slice of bread and butter,
and the owner of a penny is rich. Often it
is shared, and the sharer half drunk still. it
may be, and SO foul with the mud and refuse
into which he crawled, can hardly be known
as human, save for this one CLEAN of
something beyond the human Gaunt
forms, barely covered with rags; hol-
low eyes, fierce with hunger, meet
one at every turn in this early morning, and
for many there is not even the penny, and
they wait, sometimes with appeal, but as
often silently. the chance gift of the buyer.
Food for all the world, il would seem. and
yet London is not fed: and having once
looked upon these waits that are hoated
against the pillars of the old market, one
fancies almost curse on the piles of food
that is not for them save as charity gives it:
and the flowers, that even on graves, will
never be for them.
Men and women hut!dle here, and under
the arches children skulk away like Young
rats, feeding on offal, lying close in dark
corners for warmth and hunted about also
like rats. 1t is poverty desperate and hor-
rible beyond that that any civilized city can
show; and who shall say who is responsible
or what the end will bef
HELEN CAMPBELL.