The Washington herald., 1912-04-21

"The Children Of Don."s byP Josef ~Hol-
brooke and Lord Howard de Walden.
During the recent coal strike a great
many discoveries were. made by London
newspapermen who left London 70 study
conditions in the strike districts. and
to whom any country more than fifty
miles from ST. Paul Is terra nova.
went myself TO Wales and was shocked
at the condition OF the poor who are
living in some OF tie lovely valleys OF
that principaIlty. Nov. II the misery
had been caused BY the strike, and was
thus only temporary, / should say noth-
ing about it, but IT is permanent, and ]
think It may do some good to let the
world know something of the shocking
conditions which ! found.
In the beautiful valleys OF Wales, near
the town OF Mefthyr, which even the
collieries and the tips cannot entirely
dishgure, poverty oyercrowded into un-
inhabitable novels Is shameless horror
and an offense to whatever passes.
DowIsis, for instance, makes one physi-
cally III. I admit Il Is an extreme 0E-
ample, but there is no word which ade-
ouateiy hts the infamy OF its continued
existence II IS not a town, but dis
gusting and infectious disease.
One leaves Dowlais astonished not 30
much by what he has seen, but by the
fact that a civilized community, careful
Of its future and its growing life. should
not at once cut 1t out. for Il polsons the
social organism to which It is attached
The Welsh rebel Is rot argued into q
frame OF mind by Karl Marx. The base
of his creed is not an economic theory.
but an ethical one. He is rebel for the
same reason that some people are not
religious-cruelty and injustice make q
fanatic OF him.
What Is DowIais like. then, you ask?
To be quite candid. Dowlais is largely
unprintable. II Is a monster devouring
its young. Its folk are large cave
dwelIers on a blackened hillside; It's
houses are built on the assumption that
laborer is worth no more than % a
week.
Except that DoWIais is black. il re-
minded me. in its smells. squalor, and
heaped and promiscuous novels. Of the
native quarter Of Algiers. One gets lost
in a welter of novels on a steep and
dirty hillside, which are kept apart by
a few thoroughfares, but are piled in
one on another.
II is huddle Of dens: its rooms are
as dismal as caves, and a decent life In
such a place would be a heroic life. A
large number Of the houses are either
back to back or built against the hill
side. They rave no thorough ventIla-
tion, and their meager windows admit
little light.
You enter a habitation from above and
find ladders and narrow passages ram
flying into varying dens. where Span
iards, Irish, and Welsh families are In
and by luck-your head ach-
ng with the sulrhurous smoke and the |
smell of garlic and things which can
not escape from the varren-at last you |
emerge lower down the hill.
1 heard that the dodgers were ar
ranged on a-day and night shift in some |
Dowlais houses, the beds being always |
Though I left sick and III with what |
my guide (who knows Dowlais welD was |
determined I should experience, he stin |
had one more thing TO show me. He |
took me tn a two-roomed hovel where a |
large family lived. far below the level |
Of the street. Before II WAS the steep
slope of black refuse from the IRON
works, and there, in a corner Of that tiny
kitchen, filled with children, was waiting |
for burial the coffined body Of the
sister. ...