Greene County herald. (Leakesville, Miss.) 1898-current, 1906-04-13
THE FAMINE A LONDON.
A STARVING MILLION LEAVE
THEIR DENS AND PARADE THE
STREETS.

Strange Scenes Forced on Attention
of England-Government Consider:
ReIief-Measures-Queen AIexandrs
Starts Fund for Immediate AIlevia
tion of Misery.
"Piccadilly," the famous English
correspondent of the San francisco
Argonaut writes as follows:
London does not sleep well any
more. She is experiencing what hel
clergy call the terror by night" wher
they are reading the service. There
is famine in the biggest city OF the
world. One ministry has gone nope
lessly out and another is in power
and during every ceremony the Eng
lishman has heard, from below in the
street, the hum of the proletariat
Some of us, too, can't forget that
John Burns the new secretary of the
local government board, some twenty
years ago was the leader of just such
demonstrations of the famine-strick
en- unemployed as are now calling
forth not only the gracious charity OF
the sovereigns, but the most anxious
consideration Of all British states
men.
No notion of what is happening in
England can be given without first
understanding these cold facts: I'd
there is no employment for hundreds
of thousands of skilled laborers; (1J
Mr.. Balfour, when premier, is ac-
knowledged to have found himself alb
solutely helpless; (3) the Queen
realizing what was fermenting, step
ped in and gave the government a re-
spite by starting the Alexandra
Fund" which today reached the sum
of e11S,00O; 4) the London police
are almost helpless in the face of one
million starving people, who come out
of their dens and parade the streets,
singing the "Marsenlalse," and dis
playing the gross features of utter,
unalleviated misery.
Naturally all well-housed, well-fed
London is sleepless. The Englishman
is quicker to understand physical
wretchedness tnan most, and, more
than all he hates to be forever jostled
by sour starvelings of men and wo-
men. Something has got to be done
1t rests with the new ministry. Even
those who dislike seeing Socialist
John Burns in the cabinet feel that he
is needed. The Alexandra fund is
only makeshift.
Now that Burns is in the cabinet
the old stories of twenty years ago
are being revived. 1t is recalled that
at one time he led band of work
less men" into st. Pauls, where
they joined in the services and after.
ward made quiet appeals for some
change in the law which would re
store industries. 1t is looked upon
as distinctly odd that he should now
be the head Of the board which must
listen to just such appeals.
To the Londoner, the events of the
past few weeks have been intensely
interesting as a spectacle. The first
week in November, 5000 ''workless
women" of East and South London
gathered on the Embankment. 1nere
were gay banners, loud bands, and
much pageantry. But the real pro-
cession was that six thousand of hun
CRY, shabby women dressed in dingy
black Through unbroken lines OF
police they marched to Westminster.
AS they crossed thoroughfare after
thoroughfare, behind the police lines,
women of West London clad in costly
furs leaned out of motor-carriages
and watched this strange parade.
Mr. Balfour received the leaders in
the reception-room of the local gov
ernment board Office in Charles
street. The premier was described
as looking pale, weary, and ill-at-
ease, MS head resting upon his hand. F"
He listened to the demands of the
women that their husbands be given
employment One of the petitioners
tainted from lack of food, and was
carried out. Mr.. Balfour replied aca-
demically, concluding his refusal to
institute extraordinary provisions for
relief by saying: Where experiments
have been made, where rash endeav-
ors have been attempted, to alleviate
temporary distress, and sthe machin-
cry has been set up for what was in
itself an admirable purpose, they car
ried with them collateral conse-
| quences which, did not end with the
period of distress. BY such means
we shall do far more harm to our
country than if we turn a deaf ear
to the sufferings which l admit it is
difficult to exaggerate and impossible
to ignore
This stony philosophy was not well
received, and it is thought a good
deal of it was above the heads of
the "workless women" as the phrase
now runs.
At any rate, nothing has yet been
done, and even the West End Of Lon
don is becoming accustomed to the
constant, dumb, struggling process
sions of clay-faced, dark-haired,
scrawny folk who nave emerged ?
One sees them specially in the
churches. They enter in little bands,
very orderly, but it is noticeable the
way the subdued church noises take
on new tone. All London is learn
ing that a famished man or woman
breatnes hoarsely, with long, raucous
sighs. 1t is positively nerve-racking
to hear a whole church or chapel
filed with this wordless physical tes-
tinony to starvation.
The pawnshops, too, are filed with
evidence of hard times. Workmen's
tools, their wives sewing g-macnines,
and all the things which go to make
house into home, are stacked cell
ing-high. The parish missionaries
also have come forward with asser-
tions that there is only one possible
end to continual starvation crime.
The police courts show the truth Of
this.
OF course, there always was misery
and famine in London. One sees it's
T.