The daily morning journal and courier. [volume] (New Haven, Conn.) 1894-1907, 1903-10-08
THE sLuMs OF JoHANNEsBURa

THE SLUMss OF JOHANNESBURG.
Take my arm and come with me.
Swiftly through the streets of Johannes
burg, past the shops ablaze with light.
past the lettering crowd that saunters
idly, past the thronged theatres where
bursts of melody and spasmodic caden-
ces of applause reach the ear through
opening doors. ngg
Keep out Of the light-the cold, white
steadfast lights that line the mile
long streets; let us creep away into the
sideways where the tumble-down tin
shanty of Ramsamrfly and the dirt-be-
grimed windows of Petrifski-Isa the
son of Joseph-behind which this very
man is threading needle by the light
Of a Pickering candle. You will see him
still at work when you return, the same
Petrifski; well into the night he will
work, plying his needle and, dreaming
alone of--who knows what? Then he
will draw g filthy blanket over his
greasy form and sleep till the morning
sun awakens him, and then the needle
and the day-long dream and the
candles successor. But our business is
| not with him; only we must pass
the road in which he dwells before we
get to the east. He sits in his filth and
| his toll, and the memory of Poland is a
| boundry post between East and West
| Orient and occident.. II
I Beyond, the houses grow bewildering-
| ly various. Shops leisurely started with
some dim idea being beautiful, have
| finished by becoming patchily tin. The
builder has never finished. Unsenti-
mental necessity grasped him by the
| throat; thrusting him aside to make
room for hundred aliens.
| They did not object to unfinished
work The window sashes were never
painted, and some of the panes were
never put in, and to-day, behind red
| painted sashes and glassless windows
| the prescribed OF Poland lived happily
| enough. We are of the range OF the
white merciless arc light-that disciple
of Truth that emphasizes our wrinkles
and traces the patches on our thread
bare coats. Here the light Is more mel
low, more pleasing. tits a yellow light
and none too bright, and here the
houses are tin. They are bright enough
There is music here. Vice, gilded thinly,
i has it's votaries, its high priest, and its
/ ternp1es-ittle tin temples scented with
| Florida water. ".
! The tin town continues beyond this
but the lower end is silent. So silent
that you might think you had by acct.
dent happened upon colony living ur
to the standard set by the moral Mr.
Franklin. Early to bed theyapparent1y
are. No sound breaks the silence of the
quiet night, no light CLEANS in any
window, no smoke rises from the crazy
courtyards. Early to rise you know
they are, for daybreak sees this little
colony alive, with bamboo rod and Iader
baskets, chattering, running, loading
and trading. For this is the Chinese
quarter.
Knocks softly on one of the iron
gates. There is no answer. Here is {
door. "The Ho XII Laundry" Knocl
here, and if anybody comes invent som,
laundry urgently required by fictitious
client. But nobody will come.
But I have not brought you here TO
the pleasure Of knocking at an unres
ponsive door. I knew all along that j
would not be opened to you. But in
few minutes the gates of Chinatown will
be opened to us, and Chinatown, OBJ
sequious and smiling, will greet us witt
injured surprise and lamblike innocenc
For the police are very close at hand
all the while we have been walking thi
way they have been shadowing us Of
either hand. You NAV not have seel
them, but they have been close enough
And now-watch. They appear lik
magic from side streets and unsuspecte
alleys. In ones,- in twos, in threes
And they are coming towards US. Did