The daily morning journal and courier. [volume] (New Haven, Conn.) 1894-1907, 1903-01-10
The HARD Tines
IN ACKNOWLEDGEMENT CON
DTIION
"A Cruel satire OR che GIorfr. of
War;

London has tcAn and still! s suffer-
ing from hard winter which came
early and threatens to stay late. Other
causes, too. besides The hard winter
nave combined 10 tell heavily against
the poorer classes of the London popu-
Iatlon The country has been UVertax-
cd IN order to meet the expenses of the
recent campaigns in South Africa, and
part OF the taxation has been raised by
a duty on the material from which
bread is mad, and BY an increased
duty on sugar. Thv!e is q Slacklsss in
commerce and tl"dr Throughout the
country, and the numbers of the uncm-
pIoyed in London are gro,,ing gletter
ana greater every day.
When distress is felt in England it is
lett with especial suffering in London,
Tor the poor in London amount to
population numerically as great as the
whole population of many a foreign
capital. The uttermost provisions
which the local authorities, the poor
law guardians, the municipal councils
and the other institutions supp. scd to
provide against a sudden increase of
local poverty find their resources Who'll
ly unequal to the task at such time
as the present. Therefore in many Of
the poorer districts, especially in the
East end Of the metropolis, there is
absolute starvation going on just now
The warehouses have no space left in
which to pack the starving crowds who
are craving every day and night at
their doors for food and shelter. All
the charitable Institutions have ex-
hausted their means in trying to raise
supplies of food for furnishing residents
IN the garrets and cellars of London
lanes and alleys. The quarters of the
Salvation Army in various parts of
London are nightly besieged by hosts
OF the unemployed and the hungry, for
whom neither shelter nor the means of
Sustenance can be provided. To add to
the trouble, there are large numbers
OF men who were induced to go out
and serve as oldiers in the war. and
who now return home clamOrUus for
some means of making living, and
utterly unable to find any manner of
remunerative occupation. Hundreds
and hundreds of these men are only too
glad to accept the task of breaking
stones under the workhouse authorities
in order to get the means of obtaining
food enough to keep them alive.
The mere existence of such a class of
sufferers is in itself a cruel satire on
the glories of war. The country in
general went wild over the successes
of the campaign, such as they were,
and never could declaim praise enough
for the humble heroes who had gone
out to South Africa in their thousands
to risk their lives for the extension Of
the empire. Such men, of course, had
to give up their employments at home
in order to perform their duties as
campaigners, and now when they come
home again they find that their places
have long been filed, and that in the
ever-increasing demand for employ
ment there is nothing left for them but
to become inmates of warehouses or to
beg their bread.
a A satirical writer in my early days
once described a somewhat similar
crisis Of poverty in England and wound
up by declaring that there was at
least one consolation left to the suffer-
ers-that the starving outcast might
raise his eyes to heaven and bless the
fates that he was dying under the fin
est constitution in the world. Perhaps
there may be some comfort to the men
now vainiy seeking for bread in Lon
don streets and lanes, after their return
from the fields of fight when they call
to mind the fact that they are starving
in the cause of England's supremacy
over the two South African republics
Meanwhile it is only just to say that
charitable people in London and all
over the country are making the most
strenuous efforts to cope with the sud-
den increase of poverty which the pre-
mature winter and the lack Of employ
ment have brought upon London. The
churches of all denominations are rival
ing each other in the endeavor to raise
funds for the work of charity. The
Daily News has started a charitable
fund of it's own with the same object
and is trenuous in its appeals to the
beneficent day after day, and is pub
fishing lists of generous contributions
in each issue of the journal London,
of course, is abundant in wealth, and
money is wasted every day in the West
emu OH mere SHOWS ana NaHlllSS, WHICH
might beneficently tighten the load of
the heavily laden in the poorest quar-
tiers of the East end. But then we are
all creatures Of habit and when men
and women have got into the way Of
spending acertain annual amount up
on themselves, it is not always easy to
get them to see that they, too, have
some responsibility on their heads for
the condition of their poverty stricken
neighbors.
am bound to say, on the other hand,
that the contributions lately given by
the weather. classes, on the whole,
have been liberal and genrous, but the
terrible emergency came with an en-
tirely unexpected suddenness. and the
great difficulty at present is to form
voluntary associations capable of rem
dering efficient help to the constituted
authorities in the work Of making time
ly provision for the wants of the un-
numbered sufferers. In many Of the
poorer quarters of London all the time