The Fulton County news. [volume] (McConnellsburg, Pa.) 1899-current, 1907-04-18
LONDON'S OUTCASTS.
With the Men Who Have Touched
Bottom i'm the Great City ,s,t...s,s

were two men sitting on each side of
bench. pictures of detection and
despair. 1t was when sat down in
silence between these two men and
endeavored to look out at the world
through their eyes that l knew that
l had touched the ninth circle of our
social Inferno, and felt strongly that
IL there had been no Incarnation
there ought to have been one.
There were few workingrhen, one
OF them toying with his spade, but
most of the artisans who live here
are said to be those whose wives are
separated, whose homes are broken.
No genuine man In work stops here,
IL he is in receipt of a decent wage.
Some are suffering from physical
disabilities aud some are old, "the
too old at fifty" class, eking out a
sordid existence by a little pension
and an odd Job. There we're a few
men who had the cut of Journalists,
and one lad OF nineteen, who had
been staying there for six months,
was, / am almost sure, a student
scorning delights and living labori.
Gus days, contenting himself with the
bare necessities of existence In order
to get through a curriculum or obtain
degree.
There was the same proportion of
young lads here as on the Embank.
ment. 1t Is sad, in all conscience,
to see a brother on the ground; but
1t comes nigh to an unspeakable trag-
edy to see men touching the bottom
ledge before they are twenty-five,
and old In misfortune while only
young in years.
am haunted by the figure of a
lad holding a conversation with a
villainous looking senior on the
hearth side in front of a blazing fire.
1t was the face of boy who knew
too much and had lived too rashly.
The place had an air of comfort,
but 1t utterly lacked hope. Literally
the men are without God and with.
out hope In the world. For most OF
! them there is nothing better and
there can be nothing worse. Sufil.
Client for the day is the evil thereof.
1t is embarrassing to think of the
morrow. There is the comfort that
you are buried in Central London.
You are lost to friends and acquaint.
ances. Nobody knows and nobody
cares. There is the lodging house
for to-day and the workhouse or the
Thames for tomorrow.
An Oxford graduate who has
touched the depths and found his
feet in our mems meeting at Blooms.
bury says that the words Of Kipling
came to him again and again as he
has tramped the corridors of the doss
house or the streets of the city:
We have done with hope and honor; we
are lost to love and truth;
We are dropping down the ladder rung by
| rung.
Gentleman rankers out on the spree,
Damned from here to Eternity,
God have mercy on such as we,
Bah, Yah, BAH
But 1t is something to have given
them shelter and comfort; and here,
as in the case OF the trans, and
slums and parks, the London County
Council has been inspired by a com.
passion and humanity which Is rare
in ecclesiastical assemblies, leave alone
large public bodies. BY providing
homes that are clean, and cheap. and
wholesome they have fed the hungry.
clothed the naked and taken in the
homeless. But why cast the women
into the outermost darkness?
l.. For on Wednesday night there
we're Sisters, too, on the Embank-
ment. My wife spoke to a number
of broken down women all over fifty.
These are the despair of every social
worker in the heart of London. The
men we can send to the Council lodg-
ing houses, but for the women. there
is-nowhere!
Oh, it is pitiful,
Near a whole city full,
Home they have none.
London Daily News.