Norwich bulletin. [volume] (Norwich, Conn.) 1895-2011, 1910-09-10
CWritten for The Bulletin.)

rs Champion like every other pro-
vincial town." I wondered. 'Or per-
haps I might ask if any other town IS
like Crampton?''
In what way" asked Lady Great
heart
Does anybody care about any
body? I exclaimed THE other day,
as I was passing some people in the
street, I overheard a man say, bit
terly, 1T don't matter what trouble
you're in, there amt nobody that
cares My heart went out to him.
I've felt that way myself, sometimes.
The man and woman he was with
looked sorry, but they looked helpless,
too, as though all they could do for
him was to feel sorry, and sympa-
thize'
There is so little any one of us
ever can do really to help sighed
my sister friend.
Here, in Champion, I went on, 1--WE
have always with us the rich, the near
rich the near-poor, the actual poor,
and, last of all the pitiable, poverty
poor What do you suppose we do
with them?''
Tell me-" she smiled.
1.-THE rich are envied, fawned upon,
flattered; the near-rich are tolerated,
perhaps envied, too, a little; the near
poor are despised. or, at best, over
looked; the actual poor are petted,
patronized and provided for; but the
really pitiabIe poor are abandoned to
poverty, water rats and restitution.
And does nobody care?' asked
Greatheart.
Apparently not" I answered grim
I'm afraid it is not only Cramp-
ton" said the lady. ut sounds like all
the world"
at must be a brutally hard world
in -
Lady Greathert looked at me out
of her earnest eyes. Something has
happened to make you feel this SO
keenly," she said. what have you
been doing all these weeks I've been
away?'
Visiting the sick and in prison.
answered. Seeing the underworld
of Champion"
Lady Greatheart leaned back in her
long chair, letting her needlework rest
on her lap. Tell me about it," she
said.
"rve been proving in and out
among underground tenements. inhu-
man places for human beings to live
in I thought [ knew something about
the privations of the poor, but / never
dreamed that here, in our own beauti-
full country town, where there is room
enough and to spare, SO many people
could be living like-like water rats. -
'.Down by the river" commented
Lady Greatheart.
You know about it, them I cried.
"Only a little" she answered sadly.
81 tell you, it is not easy to know how
to help
Easy or difficult" I maintained,
there must be a way The trouble is,
lady mine, that most of us do not
care.
Let me tell you what I saw yes
terday. I was in search OF a whole
family, and I found them a beautiful
young mother-yes, young!-and five
beautiful children, all living in a hole
of a tenement, underground. What do
you think of that?'
Not waiting for her TO speak. ~
had to climb down long. rickety
flight of steps from the sidewalk, .
ley that runs down to the rivers edge.
The basement door was half open, and
when no one answered my knock, I
stepped inside and made my way to
the kitchen. 1t was SO dark that, at
first, could hardly see my way. The
room was so far below the street that
the only window 1t could have was on
a level with both the ceiling and the
sidewalk 1t was only by standing on
tiptoe against the opposite wall and
craning my neck that I could see out
and even then I could see nothing
more than the slipshod feet of the
passers-by. Outside, it was broad
day In that basement kitchen If
would have been pitch dark, but for
lighted lamp on the table. Think
of little children growing up in
Champion by lamp light underground -