The Scranton tribune. [volume] (Scranton, Pa.) 1891-1910, 1896-06-08
CRIME AND VICE
In LONDON
Some Startling Facts Revealed in Rev.
Dr.. Griffin's Address.
WHAT MISSION WORK IS DOING
II Is Fighting Criminality and
ViciOusness in the Most Degraded
Quarters of the GlObe.. ching
About the Famous West and East
Ends..TO Conquer There Is to Con.
iuer Everywhere.


Some startling facts concerning vice.
paupery and degradation in London
were revealed by Rev. DR.. Charles NJ.
Giiiin in Elm Park church last night in
his address on THE Forward Move
ment in London" DR.. Gifiin on one of
his visits to London made il his especial
purpose to study the mission work of
the church and while observing 1t he
gained information for many lecture
similar to the address deliered last
night.
Americans who are more or less con-
versant with slum life and all its horrors
in New York city. Chicago and other
large American cities, do not even COM
prehend the wickedness and beastiality
Of London: they could not comprehend
it, without seeing it, though it were but
half as bad as indicated by DIR. Giffin
last night.
London slum life, however. was not
the real subject of the eloquent gentle
mans talk. which was particularly to
show the necessity OF extending church.
or mission work, rather down to the
depths where II was needed. He used
the actual condition In London and the
work there as very forcible illustra-
ton and incentive. He closed and
clnched his discourse by observing that
as London was the capital of the earth
in all things. and surely the capital in
vice, the mission work being done there
will. If it conquers, pre- Q that the whole
globe can be won and carried for God.
nm crUrC>,,cs SDDMnN
"Go forth" Exodus, xiv, Is, was Dr.
GifHn's text. One great fault of the
church. he said, was its ease of entry
and ease of egress. Churches were not
asylums for drifting worldlings to enter
and leave at will, but they should be ag-
gressive and forward in all things, as
in England, for instance, even where
John Wesley was driven out of a cer-
tain church because he preached too
forcibly the words of the text. But he
went out and began forward move
ment, the continuance of which 1t was
the speakers privilege to witness and
knowledge of which is especially
apropos just now, new army in Amer
lea, meaning the Volunteers, has begun
a similar WORK.
OF Westminster Abbey DR.. Gifiin
spoke most tenderly and with an i'm
pressiveness which spread to the audi
tory. He touched briefly upon the lives
of the great men whose deeds and worth
are recorded there and described the
famous place as the hall of DEATH" A
more appropriate place in connection
with his subject was st. James hall,
L. sl,,11 hal tp
because there was being carried on the
great work and theory of life, Goo s
gospel. He described the method in
which q large corps of missionaries la
Dor in and about the large structure
which is situated in London's West
End.
NOT THE WORST END.
The West End, he said, was not the
worst end of the city, but it was so vile,
so low and so beastly that criminal
quarters in other cities shine in COM
parson. 1t was part of London which
furnished one-third of the crime Of all
England. The city, as a whole, he re-
marked. offered the greatest field for
religious effort of any city in the fully
civilized universe because there abounds
in addition to the ignorant evil-doer the
so-called respectable sinner in tens of
thousands. educated and esteemed, but
infidels and unbelievers of the most
hopeless type, who, with the lower ele-
ment, appear in the Walters London
missionary classification as follows:
Political and diplomatic London, lite
rary and artistic London, laboring Lon
in al
London.
OF New York city's vice and squalor,
DR.. GifIin gave graphic description
but remarked that London was so much
worse that in the comparison the Amer
can cty's paupery and viciousness
would have to be multiplied and multi
piled and multiplied. Still. the con-
dition in London was the church's op-
portunity. One London section had
100000 souls and but two Wesley chap
els; in another section were 1000 per-
sons of whom but 5000 had ever entered
church door. That was in the West
End
THE WHITECHAPEL DISTRICT.
The East End, where lies the White
chapel district. was much worse. DR..
Gifiin said. He told of Mahogany
Hail. and "Paddy's Goose" two one
time resorts of horrible iniquity, but
now occupied as missions, where Is
preached Gods word in the fumes and
smoke OF the memory of what were
once living hells. The mission workers
there were clerks, young mechanics,
young men employed during the day at
| business vocations and who worked for
| God at night and had their living
apartments in the district where they
| were respected and immuned from
| harm at the hands of the lowest and
most brutal type Of criminals.
| There was Ratcliffe highway, the
most Infamous thoroughfare on Gods
earth and where the lowest. yilest, mos,
| besotted and animal of miserable
wretches stalked about at will where
to enter a respectable person threw
his life away, but where the speaker
walked during the most dangerous hou,
of the night in safety because he was
with Mr.. Thompson. the head of the big
mission station of that district. 1t was
near that locality that fatgued and
haggard women and mothers worked
at piece e-sewing for 72 cents for three
days work and furnished their working
material, light and fuel! The lot of q
| Russian peasant, he averred, was O
| happy one in comparison.
| DR.. Giffin remarked that in view oi
what he had disclosed none in the au.