Bismarck daily tribune. [volume] (Bismarck, Dakota [N.D.]) 1881-1916, 1907-07-17
| ONDOv' EAST SIDE,

&I8S0sIps WILL = ~ SOyCi GailM
Dissipation.
A SATURDAY NIGHT SCENE.
The Awful Spectacle That Bitterly
Colo Evening In Winter Disclosed To-
the Wayfarer In the streetsThe
Huc<sters and Their Customers.
Ler me show you something which is
more terrible than tragedy and more
hideous than vice. 1t Is close wedged
procession Of thousands Of happy but
shabby men and women and children
passing at crawl between shop win
doWs and costermongers' barrows on
4 Saturday night in winter In south
east London. The wind from the
Thames blows hither and thither the
/ flames and naphtha lamps and makes
them tug and hiss at the greasy burn
ers. 1t; is bitterly cold. Women draw
their gray shawls closer over their
heads; men turn up their coat collars,
hump their shoulders and thrust their
hands deeper in their pockets, and the
blue faced children, squeezed between
the legs Of the crawling. multitude,
shiver and shuttle as they creep 50.
slowly forward with chattering teeth
and purple lips, which witch and
shudder, half from cold and half from
hunger. 81. 5sS &
\ Look at some Of the faces. The
1 women have their hair dragged back
from their foreheads The eyes are
i hardly visible. The noses are short and
4 broad. The blubber lips reach across
their swollen faces: The men have
1 shifty eyes. Their underjaws> project.
There is nothing in their faces which
suggests dignity or kindness. On all
the faces you read satisfaction and
Icontent. Even the starving children
peep about with excitement.
h On the top rail of a. stall, stuck upon
hooks and just high enough to- grin
I,above the multitude, are the heads Of
two sucking pigs, The eyes are half
topen and wear a CLASSY smile. Round
the rim Of the ears and at the edge of
the open grinning lips is a line Of
blood. They seem to hang there like
the presiding deities of the market, the
gods Of this sordid festival. .s.z
/ Butchers stand before their. open
windows, calling loudly and briskly
tor customers and reaching down joints
of meat from steel hooks, which they
fling to man inside to be weighed.
Children, bareheaded and in rags,
thrust themselves among the crowd.
offering beet roots on pieces of dirty
newspaper. The street Is filed with
Icrfes. There is smell of fish and
fusty garments. Into our faces as we
GO forward foul, fat women with
hoarse voices shove handfuls Of animal
matterthings all bloody and dreadful
and tell us that the cost is only two
pence At another barrow an old wo-
man and her three daughters are sell
a ling for pennies, twopences, three
4 pences and fourpences the loathso1ne
oddments from their rag shop. Blouses,
stays, petticoats, nightdresses, trou-
sers, waistcoats and caps-all of them
SO sodden and mustyz that we doubt IL
they would burn-are snatched up from
the wide stall, fourished in the light
. of the naphtha lamps and flung across
to the highest bidder for few coppers.
And while this marketing is going ON
and while the air is filled with the
4 hoarse shouts of the hucksters, out
from the public houses, like bees dis
lodged from a swarm, drop men and
women, many of them carrying babies
In their arms, and SLOUGH away into
1.-THE darkness of some neighboring
court. The gin shops are crammed-
Irrammed with men, women and chill
dren. The more careful housewives
Iare lingering bits of meat scarce fit for
dogs and haunting the stalls till they
Ihaye collected enough for Sundays
dinner but when this is done they, too,
!. fight their way into the gin shops and
drink till closing time. In and out Of
the pawnbrokers' shops pass the moth
ers who. wish to rescue their best
clothes for the. Sunday. Il The money
lenders doors are never still. And the
crowd in the street grows denser and
noisier. The smell Of it fills the soul
with nausea. ~, - -: ~ =
/ A young man, with a child or two in
| his arms, comes out Of a public house.
His wife and a girl friend follow after
him. mocking him for going home so
early. The wife carries baby Of three
Or four months in her arms. In the
4 middle of the road the girls begin TO
dance and sing, I, The husband turns
round and laughs. The child in his
arms, with dazed eyes, watches her
mother singing and dancing. The dirty
linen cap on the baby''s head slips of
4 as the mother whirls about, and we
see the poor little bald head going
round and round ing the glare OF the
lnaphtha How that tiny brain must
swim! How it must wonder. at the
shrill laughter Of It's swaying mother!
The baby is no larger than a skinned
rabbit. Round and round, round and
round, to the shrieked tune OF Sally,
BalIy, Was La the Ballet" while the
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