Wood County reporter. [volume] (Grand Rapids [i.e. Wisconsin Rapids], Wis.) 1857-1923, 1888-11-15
THE THIEVES QUARTER OF LONDON.
Scsnes In the Locality Made Famous by tn
WhItechapel Murders

Just back OF the old theatre. Further Up
the lane you will find Shetland street, and
the streets adjoining which are filled with
converts OF more or less note. They are
narrow streets of high buildings, the air
of which Is looked upon rs somewhat in
furious to the solitary policeman, and
much more SO 10, the unsophisticated
traveller with 6 watch. Clare Market
proper, however, is populated by a mixed
class. the woman being mostly vegetable
shippers, pea shelters, and the like.
In Convent Garden market, which is q
quarter Of mile away to the west, Dick
Turpin's hosiery is On the east boundary.
close to Lincoln's Inn Fields. Jack
Sheppard's lodgings in Wych street on
the south side, near the Strand, have just
been torn down. Tradition makes Glare
Market the houe of thievery, and high
waymen are its altared saints. Glare
Market consequently does not waste its
time in bordering to any great extent
the abstract value of virtue. The con-
crete necessity of drink, and when they
remember it, of food, absorbs the entire
mental energy of its heather inhabitants.
Il lies in the heart of London, and may
some day be discovered by those benevo-
| lent supporters of foreign missions who
are spending some millions of dollars en-
nually to force down the throa S of
Africa's and Asia's heather certain
religious food which they are through
natural causes entirely unable to digest
| Glare Market of a Saturday night
simply blazes with light. The narrow
street is full OF two-wheeled barrows, each
having fiat top about six feet long and
three feet wide. Each is surmounted by
a faring naphtha lamp to illuminate its
wares. These consist Of about every
| human necessity which can be sold in
penny lots. Trays Of caulifowers, cab
bages, turnips, carrots, greens, water
crosses, chops, saussgee, fresh fish, red
| herring, dried Goldfish, Wonen's dresses
mems clothing, second hand shoes, lamps
crockery, and as many more commodities
| fill the main and side streets. The place
is densely crowded with people and loco
motion is well neigh impossible. The air
| is babel of cries entirely unintelligible
| to the foreign ear. Every man and WON
ali is shouting or shrieking to attract Gus
| tom. Every costerm0nger's boy, no mat
ter what his age, yells louder and shriller
than his father. tt is his only object in
life to emulate foghorn or steam whsle,
and heredity through several generations
has given him voice as dispropOrtion-
ate to his size as that of q young prairie
dog. It is highly picturesque scene,
deliberately scented with fried fish, the
luxurious staple of the London slums.
Its most picturesque components, how
ever, are women.
They are of all ages, all slatternly, and
all haggard. Every woman has black
eye or baby, or both. About one in five
is drunk, and the rest are willing to be.
They all wear shawls over their heads,
and all the shawls and all the dresses are
of the same dingy brown color, the tint
to which all other cheap coiors fade in
their feeble old age. Through the slight
| ly opened doors of the brilliantly lighted
"pubs" you can see them crowding the
bars to repletion. They get pint of
ale for a penny, the most horrible and
brutalizing liquid that in any country
claims bastard kinship with hops and
malt. Here and there you find one lying
| down dead drunk dark, shapeless mass
| pushed against the wall on the sidewalk,
| less sesf-Tespecting and far more aban-
doned than the rats that will creep from
| the sewer by and by to gaze at her with
their sharp eyes, and perhaps brush her
with their clean little wh1skers. Yonder
| is m aternal beast sitting down insensi.
BILE, with her dress all open and q dirty
baby asleep il her lap, Here comes a
drunken mother-a tall, raw boned wo
staggering along through the thick
| tarong with her arm closely clasping the
Il, ck of the little girl who is com PEELED
to s5agger with her. The mother is
shrieking some ribald song above the din
It is nGW only 10 O'Clock, however, and
| but few of the women are drunk as yet
Old King Alcohol's weekly carnival is only
| beginning, and these are the early con-
| ers.
Ii you will stroll through the market
taking care to button your coat closely
over your watch chain. you will get into
| Giibert's Passage. There is dark, dim
iy lighted way leading under the SECOND
story of the houses, with black and mar
row doorways, into black and marrow
passages on every side. Here there is
cheerful merriment among a crowd o.
women. A drunken man of middle-ag e
short, thick set and bald headed, stands
in the middle of the passage threatening
everybody. He has exasperated tai
young fellow who has a small shop there
and the young fellow pitches into him
The young man after a sharp wrestls
throws him, end the old bald head hit
the stone pavement with a ring tina
should have cracked it like nut. Thi
is funny, and the crowd OF sletterl
women laugh shrilly. Now the old man.
ostensible wife runs out of her hole tt
his rescue. She has a voluble converse
tion with another woman and in arothe
minute they are at it. A few moments
more and they are torn apart with bleed
ing faces and disordered tresses. Their
they denounce each other in terms no
nice, but entirely in harmony with thu
environment. Constable AZ nov
strolls in and touches the ola man will
his foot to see that he is not dead. H
tells the woman to 60 on and bundles th'
old man and his defender into door
way. The rest look at aim with ugly
hate. They go on however cit don't DE-
to show that you're afraid Of 'em." h
says as he strolIs along to where yor
stand. eff did they'd up end me in nt
time"
There is baby in the arms If another
baby, perhaps three years older, on tht
pavement just in front of yoa. There
are babies everywhere, in the arms OF
women, in tie arms of children, on the
pavements, in the cutters, in the door
ways, and in the windows. The women
carry them anyhow, much as men carry a
not particularly valuable parcel. Yonder
along the passage are three tiny LITTLE
girls holding three babies, all sitting on
the dirty pavement against the wall. AL
six are in rags. Queer babies these
They are so dirty. Their faces are dirty
their legs are dirty, and their shoes when
they have them, are soaked with the black
liquid of the gntter that trickles along BY
each curb. There are hays all about you
old, decrepit, toothless, waxy- faced, gum
my-eyed hags. They are so old that they