The Topeka state journal. [volume] (Topeka, Kansas) 1892-1980, 1903-10-19
JOHANNESBURG sLUMs.


Take 1r- arm and come with me.
Swiftly through the streets of johann
nesburg. past the shops ablaze with
light past the lettering crowd that
saunters idly, past the thronged the
aters where bursts of melody and spas
modic cadenoes of applause reach the
ear through opening doors.
Keep out of the Ight-the cold, white
Steadfast lights that line the nlile-long
streets; let US creep away into the side
ways where are the tumble-down tin
shanty of Ramsammy and the dirt
begrimed windows of Petrifski-ISaac,
the son of Joseph-behind which this
very man is threading a needle by the
light of 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 a filthy blanket over
his greasy form and sleep till the MORN
ing sun awakenS him, and then again
the needle and the day-long dream and
the candies successor. But our bust
ness is not with him: only we must
pass the road in which he dwells beforer
we get to the east. He sits in his filth
and his toll. and the memory of Poland
is a boundary post between East and
West, between Orient and Occident.
Beyond, the houses grow bewildering-
~ various. Shops, leisurely started with
some dim idea of being beautiful. have
finished by becoming patchily tin. The
builder has never finished. IInsenti-
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 today, behind red painted sashes
and glaSSleSS windows the prescribed OF
Poland live happily enough. Wa are
out of the range of the white merciless
arc light-that disciple of Truth that
emphasizes our wrinkles and traces the
patches on our thread coats. Here
the light is more mellow, more pleasing.
1t is a yellow light and none too bright
and here the houses are tin. They are
bright enough. There is much here.
Vice. gilded thinly, has it's votaries it's
high priest, and it's temples-littIe 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 a colony living up
to the standard set by the moral Mr.
Franklin. Early to bed they apparently
are. No sound breaks the silence of the
quiet night, no light CLEANS in any win
courtyards. Early to rise you know
they are, for daybreak sees this little
colony alive. with bamboo rod and laden
baskets, chattering, running, loading,
and trading. For this is the Chinese
quarter.
Knock softly on one of the iron gates.
There is no answer. Here is d door.
THE Ho Ki Laundry Knock mere.
and if anybody comes invent some
laundry urgently required by fictitious
client. But nobody will come.
But I have not brought you here for
1.-THE pleasure of knocking at an unre-
sponsive door. 1 knew all along that it
would not be opened to you. But in a
few minutes the gates of Chinatown
viii be opened to us, and Chinatown,
obsequious and smiling, will greet Us
with injured surprise and lamblike innO-
cence. For the police are very close at
hand: all the while we have been walk
ing this way they have been shadowing
us on either hand. You may not have
seen them but they have been close
enough. And now-watch. They APP
pear like magic from side streets anu
unsuspected alleys. In ones, in twos, in
threes And they are coming towards
us. Did 1 tell you we have one OF the
chiefs of police with US?
There is no noise. no melodramatic
whistle A whispered word of command,
and two men have scaled the iron gate
way and have dropped into the darkness
on the other side. A second more, and
the gate CRATES open on rusty hinges,
and we are inside. 1t is rather G1sap-
pointing at first. There is nothing sug
gestive of the F1OWerys Land-no page
thre sides Of a garbage streWn square,
ranged around which are the Sordid tea
shanties of John. But it strikes you inn
mediately that nobody is asleep. In
fact. everybody is wide awake a Dozen
Cinnamon of all sizes and ages are sit
ting around red-hot brazier on which
some mess is steWing, and all the little
houses that have not lights have
snouldering wicks-which is significant.
/ Somebody flashes an electric torch
extinguished candle still glows, and its