London Poor & London Fog

[Howard Brown]

From an American periodical ( Haven't located the author yet...) during the Mid Victorian Period, in 1862.




LONDON FOGS AND LONDON POOR.

I first saw London on a morning late
in November; or, it will be more correct
to say that I should have seen it, if a
dense fog had not concealed every thing
that belonged to it, wharves, warehouses,
churches, St. Paul's, the Tower, the
Monument, the Custom-House, the ship-
ping, the river, and the bridge that
spanned it. We made our dock in the
Thames at an early hour, before I was
dressed for landing, and by the time I
had hurried upon deck to cast the first
eager glance around, the fog had de-
scended, shutting all things from view.
A big, looming something was receding
as I gained the top of the companion-
ladder, and faded altogether before I
could attach to it any distinct idea. But
the great heart of the city was beating,
and where I stood its throbbing was
distinctly audible. A hum, in which
all sounds were blended, a confused roar
of the human ocean that rolled around
me, fell with strange effect upon my ear,
accustomed for nearly five weeks only
to the noises peculiar to shipboard.

Certainly the fogs did not afford me a
cheering welcome. It was denser and
dirtier than the fogs we had encountered
off the banks of Newfoundland, and
more chilling and disagreeable to the
human frame. It did not disperse the
whole day. What with the difficulty
that attended our landing, and the long
delay consequent upon the very dilatory
movements of the Custom-House officers,
the night had fairly closed in—it did not
add much to the darkness—before I was
en route to an hotel. A Scotch fellow-
passenger, who had maintained a sullen
reserve throughout the voyage, which
ought to have placed me on my guard
against him, had attached himself to me
during our troubles at the Custom-House,

and now joined with us all in loud re-
buke of the sluggish motions and rude
behavior of the officers. He knew that
I was a stranger, and with a show of
cordiality, for which I was very thank-
ful, he invited me to accompany him to
a quiet, respectable hotel, where the
charges were not exorbitant. As his
proposal suited my purse and my humor,
I acquiesced willingly enough, little sus-
pecting into what hands I had fallen.
In less than an hour we were seated at
a capital dinner, the best that I ever
remembered to have eaten, so exquisite
is the relish imparted by a keen appe-
tite to the first meal one gets on shore
after a long sea-voyage.

[Howard Brown]

It was an amusing sight to see scores
of ragged boys carrying about torches
for sale. The cry of `Links! links!'
resounded on all sides. `Light you
home for sixpence, sir,' said one of them,
as I stood watching their operations.
`If 'tan't far,' he added, presently, `I'll
light you for a Joey.' A Joey is the
flash term for a four-penny piece, or
eight cents of our money, and is so
called because these silver coins, some-
what larger than a half-dime, are said to
owe their origin to Mr. Joseph Hume.
We witnessed a bargain struck between
one of these urchins and a servant-girl,
who imprudently yielded to his demand
to have the money in advance. No
sooner had the young rogue conveyed
it to his pocket than he ran off to seek
another customer as simple, leaving the
poor girl to strike a wiser bargain on the
next occasion.

That I might fairly appreciate the
character of the fog, my companion pro-
posed that we should `put off into the
unknown dark.' Not till I had got into
the street, and was groping my way
among the pedestrians, instead of watch-
ing them in security from the topmost
of a flight of steps, could I estimate its
real nature. To my bewildered eyes it
had the appearance of a solid wall con-
stantly opposing our further progress.
The blazing torches that we met were
invisible at fifty yards' distance. The
tradesmen had closed their stores from
fear of thieves, who are remarkably act-
ive at such seasons. I afterward learned
that in one of the leading throughfares
a vender of hams and bacon, who had a
quantity of goods exposed in front of
his open store, was robbed in a most
daring manner at an early hour of the
evening. The thieves drove a cart to
his door, and had nearly filled the vehi-
cle with spoil before they were observed.
The tradesman rushed into the street,
but the villains had urged on the horse,
and although he heard the noise of the
wheels, pursuit was an utter impossibil-
ity. Robberies on the person are of
frequent occurrence at such times, even
in the most crowded streets, the security
with which the thief attacks a single
individual rendering his audacity almost
incredible. Before assistance can arrive
he has darted across the road, and is in
safety at a few yards' distance from the
scene of his violence.

[Howard Brown]

We were about a quarter of a mile
from the hotel, and were on the point of
retracing our steps when a cry of `Fire!'
was raised in our vicinity, followed by a
rush of several persons in the direction
from which the alarm proceeded. In a
few minutes all the torches in the street
seemed to be collected in one spot, and
the crowd grew rapidly. I expected to
hear the fire-bell, but I was told that
the Londoners have no alarm-bell of any
kind. The glare of a conflagration is
usually the first warning conveyed to
the firemen, when instantly a score of
engines are turned out, horses, that are
always kept ready harnessed, are fast-
ened to the shafts, and away they go,
pell-mell, through the streets, every ve-
hicle, to the Lord Mayor's or Prime Min-
ister's carriage, being compelled to draw
aside and give them room to pass. On
this occasion their services were not re-
quired, the fire being confined to the
basement-story of the building in which
it had originated, and extinguished by
the exertions of the inmates before any
material injury was sustained. The
crowd that had collected was not a small
one, and the congregation of so many
torches dispelled in part the oppressive
gloom of the fog. But when they had
dispersed, and the unnatural darkness
was made more palpable by the sudden
contrast effected by the withdrawal of
such a glare of light, I found that my
companion had disappeared. Once I
fancied that my name was called, and
I thought that he was perhaps search-
ing for me in a wrong direction. I ran,
as I conjectured, in pursuit of his re-
treating footsteps, but was soon abruptly
brought to a halt by a wall, against
which I nearly dashed myself with a
force that would have stunned me. Of
the name of the hotel, or even of the
street on which it was situated, I was
utterly ignorant, and as the climax of
my difficulty, I discovered that all the
money I had in my pocket was a fifty-
cent piece that I had brought from New-
York. I attempted to buy a torch of a
boy, but I could not persuade him that
my half-dollar, though it was not current
money, was worth much more than an
English sixpence, valued as old silver.
He evidently regarded me as an im-
proper character, and refused to deal
with me. I detained the first man I
met, and explained my situation, but as
I could give him no clue to the where-
abouts of the hotel, he could furnish
me no assistance. As nearly as I could
conjecture, it was within half a mile of
the spot where I was standing, but I
could not indicate the direction. `There
are fifty hotels,' he said, `within that
distance, taking the sweep of the com-
pass.'



I now began seriously to fear that I
should have to pass the night in the
streets. My clothes were already moist
with the fog, and I knew that before
morning they must be saturated. A
policeman, who chanced to pass at this
juncture, recommended me to obtain a
bed at the nearest inn, and to renew my
search in the morning. Then arose the
difficulty about the money; but as it
occurred to me that I could leave my
watch in charge of the landlord as se-
curity for the payment of my expenses,
I decided to accompany him to an inn
in the neighborhood, to which he under-
took to guide me. It was an indifferent
place, being one of the gin-palaces for
which London is famous, but I was con-
tent, under the circumstances, to remain
there. The landlord, having examined
my watch, and being satisfied that it
would cover all reasonable charges, if I
never reäppeared to claim it, conferred
with his wife respecting her domestic
arrangements. It was not usual, he
told me, personally, for him to let beds
at such a late hour to strangers, but he
thought I could be accommodated. The
policeman's satisfaction was very cor-
dially expressed, and as he lingered at
my elbow, and significantly remarked
that the fog had got into his throat, I
ordered him a glass of warm brandy and
water, for which he bowed acknowledg-
ments. He was dressed, I noticed, in
the livery with which the engravings in
Punch have made our public familiar.
He asked me several questions about
the police in New-York, complained that
it was impossible for a man to live de-
cently in England, and remarked that
`if it weren't for the knocking-up money,
a policeman in London couldn't do it
nohow.' I inquired what he meant by
`knocking-up money,' and was informed
that it was the custom in London, and
in all the large towns, for laboring men,
who had to rise to their work at an
early hour, to pay a small sum weekly
to the policeman in whose `beat' they
resided, for knocking loudly at their
doors in the morning to awaken them.
It is usual for policemen to add several
shillings to their weekly wages by this
practice, and it is so far recognized by
the regulations of the force, that men
who have slightly misconducted them-
selves are punished by being removed
from a `beat' where there is a great
deal of `knocking-up' to be performed,
and transferred to a more respectable
quarter of the town, where the inhabit-
ants are not compelled to rise until they
choose.

[Howard Brown]

I had leisure before the arrangements
for my night's repose were concluded,
to contemplate the novel scene which
the interior of the gin-palace presented.
Many of our Broadway liquor-stores
are, in point of gilding and decoration,
equally splendid, but there all resem-
blance ceases. Behind the spacious bar
stood immense vats containing whole
hogsheads of ardent spirits. These were
elevated on a pedestal about four feet
from the floor, and reached to the lofty
ceiling. Their contents were gin, whis-
ky, rum, and brandy, of various stand-
ards. Others of a somewhat smaller
size contained port, sherry, and Madeira
wines, or the adulterations which pass
by their names, with an undiscriminat-
ing public. When these vats were emp-
ty, they were filled from barrels in the cel-
lars beneath by means of a force-pump.

The customers at the bar were of a
motley description. There were many
females among them, mostly girls of the
town, who were swallowing undiluted
drams of gin and peppermint. Pallid
mechanics and their wives, the latter
sometimes bearing young children in
their arms, exhibited varying degrees of
drunkenness, from the hilarious or maud-
lin state to that of rolling intoxication.
Even children, whose size was so dimin-
utive that they had to stand on tiptoe
to elevate their heads above the counter,
demanded and received their liquor, im-
bibing the burning fluid with eyes that
sparkled delight. I was in the temple
of the gin-fiend, and the crowd around
me were his daily devotees.

The next morning when I awoke I
hastened to the window of my room.
The opposite houses were visible, and
the ordinary traffic of the streets was
not impeded. A drizzling rain was fall-
ing, and pedestrians waded ankle deep
in slush and mud. The fog, though
partially dispelled, brooded over the
house-tops, and concealed the chimneys.
All the stores were lighted with gas, and
one could well imagine that the sun had
never shone in that dismal climate.

The landlord readily consented to ad-
vance me a pound sterling on my watch,
and without stopping to take breakfast,
I plunged into the miry streets. I was
at a loss what course to pursue. The
fog of the previous evening had prevent-
ed my noticing any of the external fea-
tures of the hotel in which I had dined
with my Scotch acquaintance, and where
my trunks, that contained all the money
for my travels, and the introductory
letters that were essential to the purpose
for which I had visited Europe, were
deposited. The house in which I had
passed the night was situated in St. Mar-
tin's Lane, and a radius thrown out from
that centre would, in some quarter, touch
the hotel at a distance of half a mile or
thereabout. I was sure of that, as of
one ascertained fact, but I had no other
clue to guide my footsteps.

I know not how many hotels I entered
during that day. The night, I know,
had closed in, and found me a denizen
of the streets, splashed with mud to the
collar of my coat, and worn out with
fatigue. At night I got a bed at a small
coffee-house, for I saw that it would be
necessary to economize the few shillings
that I had in my possession. The sun
was really shining the next morning,
when I breakfasted, and the landlord
spoke of the blue sky, remarking that
the day would be a fine one. To my
apprehension the sky was gray, which
is, indeed, almost always the color of
the English sky at all seasons. From
the Post-Office Directory, which I found
at the coffee-house, I copied a list of all
the hotels within half a mile of St. Mar-
tin's Lane. Entering one of these about
noon—it was situated in Rupert street—
I recognized the first waiter who pre-
sented himself. I thought it strange
that he did not seem surprised at my
appearance, or allude to my enforced
absence, but upon inquiring for the
Scotchman, I was utterly confounded
by his reply: `Oh! the gentleman that
dined with you, sir, the day before yes-
terday. He went away yesterday, sir,
and took your trunks with him.'

`Took my trunks with him!' I ex-
claimed.

`Yes, sir; he said that you had gone
on to Birmingham, by the mail-train,
and that he was to follow with the lug-
gage.'

I almost reeled at the intelligence.
The perfidy of the Scotchman was man-
ifest. He had taken me into the fog to
lose me, and while I was picturing his
dismay at the accident which had sepa-
rated us, and his anxiety on my account,
the scoundrel was appropriating my
trunks and valises. I hastened to con-
fer with the proprietor of the hotel re-
specting the step which it would be best
to take. He was a very respectable
man, and was sincerely grieved for my
loss.

`We will go to Scotland Yard imme-
diately,' he said, `and acquaint the Chief
of Police.'

My money, my letters, every thing
that stood between me and beggary
were in the purloined trunks. The
landlord told me to regard his house as
my home. The police-officer heard my
story patiently, but seemed to think
that the chance of getting back the
trunks was a small one. And the sequel
proved he was right.

Altogether, I resided fifteen months
in London, and the present record will
consist of my later and more matured
impressions. An American who has
never seen this metropolis can have but
a faint idea of it. A fair distribution of
the houses would cover Manhattan Island.
Two of its parks contain some square
miles of pleasure-ground, and the small-
est of five would clear New-York of
buildings from the City Hall to the
Battery. It is indeed a mammoth city.
The ancient suburbs of Westminster,
Southwark, Lambeth, Chelsea, Isling-
ton, Pentonville, Shoreditch, Hackney,
Whitechapel, Limehouse, Rotherhithe,
with the modern Pimlico, Knights-
bridge, Old and New Brompton, Bays-
water, Paddington, St. John's Wood,
Camden Town, Somer's Town, Kings-
land, Camberwell, and many more, are
now united with it, and make it by far
the largest city in the world. Starting
from almost any point of its extreme
boundary, and traversing the city till
you reach the opposite boundary—as
from Brompton to Hackney—you will
walk nine miles nearly in a straight line
without quitting the pavement. I was
disappointed in many of the public
buildings; I would be understood, how-
ever, to refer to them only as works of
architecture, for to the interest attaching
to their historical associations I could
not be insensible. Protestantism has
built no churches. St. Paul's is its best
effort, and that is a failure. It is, in-
deed, a wonderful building, considered
per se, but compare it with the Conti-
nental cathedrals, or with York Minster.
I must own that the shameful exaction
of money at the doors created a feeling
of dissatisfaction which, perhaps, in some
measure transferred itself to the edifice.
The English are the only people who are
so mercenary as to charge for admission
to their temples, and the man who guards
the door of St. Paul's is one of the worst
specimens of his class. I paid cheer-
fully a dollar and a quarter to see a play
of Shakspeare's performed at the Hay-
market Theatre, but I grudged the four
cents that I dropped into the exacting
palm of the rubicund janitor of St. Paul's.
'Tis a vile system. They sell the mem-
ories of their famous heroes, of their
philosophers and poets, by making a
raree-show of their tombs. A nation
should have free access to the hallowed
spots where rest the ashes of its might-
iest dead. St. Paul's, Westminster Ab-
bey, and all such buildings, should be
free as the streets to decent people, for
genius receives inspiration at such al-
tars, and men fresh from the common-
place of every-day life rub off the rust
of the world in the holy and awful calm
of these and kindred sanctuaries. How
venerable would they appear to the
American, if they were not markets of
gain and greed to their clerical propri-
etors! The poets whose tombs are the
chief attraction in Westminster Abbey
are not foreigners to the Anglo-Saxon
race of the New World. We, too, claim
a property in their works. Our fore-
fathers were contemporaries with Shak-
espeare, Spenser, and Milton, inhabited
the same land, breathed the same air,
were subject to the same laws; and we
speak to-day the language of Words-
worth, Coleridge, and Tennyson. We
have, I insist, a claim on the glorious
memories that give renown to England;
and the avarice that bars the gates of
her abbeys and cathedrals against the
poor, is a disgrace to a great nation.

[Howard Brown]

There has been lately a report that
St. Paul's had grown ashamed of its
greediness, and Westminster Abbey has
at length really admitted the public
without demanding its sixpences—ad-
mitted, that is, to a large portion of the
building, but not to the whole. The
mausoleums of the kings are still worthy,
in the opinion of the Dean and Chapter,
of some silver coins sterling. Let them
remain so. We are not especially anx-
ious to do homage to them. The intel-
lectually great of England are worthy of
much—sometimes of all—reverence;
her kings of very little, or of none. But
St. Paul's is closed still, notwithstanding
the report of free admission which re-
cently agitated the public of London.
Nelson's sepulchre is worth some score
of pounds sterling per annum. Dr.
Johnson's statue can be seen any day
for twopence, which is tenpence less
than Madame Tassaud charges for ad-
mission to her wax effigies, and must
therefore be considered cheap.

An American is astonished at the
number of beggars in every city of
England. Even the small towns and
the smallest villages have them. Their
numbers in London are roundly esti-
mated at one hundred and twenty thou-
sand. You meet them every where.
They are, in some quarters, like the
paving-stones of the street—eternally
present. There are artists in colored
chalks, who limn the heads of Christ
and Napoleon on the pavement, with the
inscription: `I am starving.' Very fairly
are the portraits executed; very decent
artists they are, and they grovel by the
side of their handiwork in an attitude of
broken-hearted despondency, and pocket
the pennies of the charitable. Objects
the most decrepit in nature, hideous,
half-nude wretches, male and female,
creep along the streets, shivering, too
evidently starving, till your heart aches
at the spectacle, and you deprive your-
self of your last cent to administer
relief. These are impostors. So are the
respectable class—the broken-down
tradesmen, who, in a suit of decent
black Saxony cloth, and wearing a spot-
less white kerchief around their necks,
offer lead-pencils for sale. So respectable
are they, that you start to see them, and
are almost ashamed to offer them a dol-
lar; but they will accept a cent, and
will ply the same trade for years to
come, in a suit equally as respectable.
It is one of the mysteries connected
with them, that their clothes never wear
out. I grew familiar with the features
of one of these respectable men, from
seeing him almost daily in some quarter
of London. During the twelve months
that I kept my eye upon him, the condi-
tion of his apparel was unchanged. His
coat never got old, nor did he ever have
a new one. That man is at this moment
an unpleasant puzzle to me—a conun-
drum without a solution. The income
of this class of beggars, I was told, is
considerable—much better than a clerk's
in Lombard or Wall street.

The lodging-houses of the lowest class
of professed beggars, who do not trade
on assumed respectability, or make a
pretense of having once been better off,
present to an American a spectacle, or
chapter of spectacles, of which he can
previously have no conception. They
are situated in the most densely crowded
and dirtiest quarters of the town, and
are approached through lanes of the
most noisome filth. No comparison
holds good with any quarter of Boston,
New-York, Philadelphia, or any city of
the Union, for there is nothing in our
cities to compare with them. Let us
enter one of them. The common board-
ing-room, in which meals are taken, is
about forty feet long by twenty broad.
Either the floor has never been paved, or
a thick layer of street-soil has hidden the
stones for many a day past. Along each
side of a long, narrow table, runs a
wooden bench of rough construction,
which is the only seat the place affords.
The knives and forks are chained to the
table. Strange implements they are,
and a thief, one would think, must be
reduced to shifts indeed if they could
offer him a temptation. Almost every
fork has lost one of its prongs, and
every knife has been notched or other-
wise abused. The plaster has mostly
fallen from the walls of the room, the
very laths are cut away, and the naked
bricks and rude masonry are exposed.
The ceiling is blackened with the tobacco-
smoke of years, ascending every night
from a hundred pipes. The filth that
accumulates is seldom cleared away,
but is swept into heaps in the corners,
and remains there perhaps for weeks.
A stench pervades the place, and a hor-
rible moisture settles upon the walls.
The room every night has the appearance
of a market-place, where beggars vend
and where beggars are the purchasers.
From the roof a dim light is suspended,
and candles stuck into glass bottles are
placed upon the table. The daily con-
tributions of the benevolent are here
disposed of; what one has, another
lacks. Old coats, old boots and shoes,
old gowns, are freely bartered for to-
bacco and gin. Women from neighbor-
ing rag-shops attend to buy, and candle-
makers send their agents to collect fat
and grease. Every individual brings his
own food, for the proprietor of the house
finds lodging only, and not board. The
atmosphere reeks with the smell of her-
rings and fried sausages. After supper
is finished, a fiddler—one of their num-
ber, paid for his services by contributions
of tobacco and beer—strikes up some
merry music; dancing commences, and
goes on till midnight, and often far into
the morning. Save in such houses,
such dancing and such dancers were
never seen. The lame cast aside their
crutches, the blind regain their sight,
the paralyzed are alert and nimble, the
trampers of every species jig in turn, or
altogether, shaking their rags unto the
jocund tune; and where is there a
blither party? Burns has pictured the
scene in his `Jolly Beggars,' and he is
the laureate of the night.

Would you know what kind of dormi-
tories these people resort to when their
dancing is finished? I will describe one
out of many that I saw, which will serve
as a specimen of the rest. Let us ascend
the rickety staircase. The atmosphere
is intolerably foul, and you feel that a
week's confinement in such a den would
cause your death. Well, these are the
beds; a heap of straw, matted with
long service, and a filthily foul rug for a
coverlet. The sleepers have no other
covering, in summer or winter. These
beds change their occupants, perhaps,
every night; for a tramper seldom sleeps
two consecutive nights in the same place.
Do not approach too near, for they are
alive with loathsome vermin. There are
twenty-five beds in a room thirty feet by
fourteen, and in each bed two and some-
times three persons are placed. When
the landlord is doing a good business, he
puts three lodgers in each bed. Seventy-
five sleepers in that confined space! For
such accommodation the charge is six
cents per night. And this is quite a
respectable lodging-house. There are
four-cent lodging-houses, where there is
only straw without any covering; and
there are three-cent houses, where there
is no straw even, but only bare boards
rotting beneath a crustation of dirt and
filth, which is never washed off.

The frequenters of these places are
professed beggars; and although their
sufferings are at times great, they must
not be classed with the deserving poor.
You will see the latter lingering at the
doors of work-houses. I have seen
some two hundred of them on a winter's
evening, when the frost has sharply
bound up the lakes in the parks and
the fountains in Trafalgar Square, shiv-
ering in semi-nudity on the bare and
bitter pavement, waiting for admission.
The houses of the rich—where lap-dogs
were fed on hot and savory steaks, or
even on daintier poultry—were standing
around, and the heavens were as brass
to the wails of the wretched crowd. I
have been fairly staggered at such sights.
I remember that one occasion a man
dropped dead in the street where I was,
while on his way to the workhouse, and
it was found upon inquiry that he was
really starved to death.

[Howard Brown]

They sit and lie before the work-
houses, at such times, huddled almost
upon one another, and forming such
groups of hungry, squalid, and degraded
human beings, as no painter would ven-
ture to transfer from life to canvas. Of
the number that apply for admission,
one half will be rejected, who must
shelter themselves under the dry arches
of the bridges, or creep into hidden
doorways, up narrow alleys, where the
police are not likely to find them. For
if found, they would be seized and taken
before a magistrate, to be punished for
being homeless and without food. Many
of them do not dread this punishment,
but will seek to deserve it by more
criminal conditions than enforced indi-
gence and helpless hunger. They will
break street-lamps and tradesmen's win-
dows, to get a month's imprisonment,
with food, and rest, and shelter for that
period. Others, and the majority, have
a prouder spirit. They will escape a
prison, with the help of God. Their
number is very great. There are fifty
thousand, it is said, in London, who rise
every morning without knowing where
to procure a breakfast. God be with
them!

But all the want, and all the sin pro-
duced by want, in London, it would take
all the volumes of the Conversations-
Lexicon to recount. The streets—every
street—is filled with it. Survey the
thoroughfares at night. If any modest
person is occasionally shocked at the
exhibitions in Broadway, what would
he say to Regent street, the Haymarket,
the Strand, Fleet street, Cheapside, or
fifty other streets in London? I have
reckoned nearly three hundred unfor-
tunate females, as they call themselves,
in the space of one mile, on one side of
the street alone, from Charing Cross to
Temple Bar. These girls, as records
testify, were mostly starved into the life
of their adoption. They will tell you,
if you converse with them in their
serious moments—for they have such—
that but for the mad excitement drawn
from gin, they could not live. The river
that flows sullenly along—what a cata-
logue of woes, what shame and frenzied
despair, it has ended!

[Howard Brown]

I was crossing Waterloo Bridge one
night when there was suddenly a shout
and a rush of people. A girl had thrown
herself off the parapet, and was strug-
gling in the water. The moon shone
brightly down, and her figure was dis-
tinctly visible as she wrestled with the
tide that was bearing her away. She
was the third that had jumped into the
river within twelve days; the average
of such suicides in London being one in
eight days. A vain effort was made to
save her. Her body drifted down the
river to be cast up at Greenwich or
Woolwich, or perhaps the tide swept it
out to sea, never to be found. I searched
the newspapers for many days after-
ward, but saw no record of the poor
creature's miserable end. These things
happen so frequently in London, that
the press seldom records them, unless
they offer some peculiar features of
interest.

In treating of the horrid want and
misery that prevail among the very
poorest class in London, I have as yet
only partially uncovered the picture.
We will draw the curtain back a little
further, not to present the entire truth
in all its fidelity, for that would be too
harrowing.

In the streets of London I have seen
women and children contending for the
possession of a bone drawn from the
slush of the kennel. I have seen boys
fight and bruise each other for a crust
of bread dropped upon the pavement,
and covered with wet mud, or even
unsightlier filth. I have entered the
abode of this desperate poverty, led
thither by children, who have clamored
at my side for alms, and found such
misery as I am incompetent to express
in words. I have seen the living unable
to rise from sickness, in the same bed
with the dying and the dead. I have
known an instance where a living man
in strong health, bating the exhausting
effects of privation and sorrow, has been
compelled to seek repose in the straw
beside the body of his dead wife, his
children occupying the floor, and there
being in the room neither chair in which
he could seat himself, nor table on which
he could stretch himself for rest. I
have seen an infant crawl for nourish-
ment to its dead mother's breast, and
there was not in all the house the value
of a cent to buy it food. I have seen a
wife, in following her husband's body to
the grave, drop in the road and die be-
fore medical assistance could be pro-
cured. A post-mortem examination
proved that she died from hunger.

Let no one say that there are charita-
ble asylums enough in London to fur-
nish assistance in all deserving cases of
extreme distress. If there are, their
doors—and I appeal to all Englishmen
who know any thing about the workings
of the Poor Law System in their coun-
try, whether I do not record the truth—
are closed in three cases out of five
against the applicant. Besides, charity
in London is reserved and suspicious.
But its reserve is chilling to the deserv-
ing poor, who are usually too proud to
disclose their sufferings to strangers,
and are ashamed to solicit alms with an
open hand. They strive as long as they
are able; their history, if duly recorded,
would swell the roll of martyrs. I have
known among them heroes and heroines,
as in all nations such, whether apparent
to the world or not, are never wanting.
Wives, who have been bred in comfort,
working for their husbands who were
out of employment, and supporting them
by the scanty wages of such industry
as many men would shrink from. Girls
of tender years toiling to support a sur-
viving parent, sisters toiling for their
brothers. And all done not only with-
out a murmur, but with cheerfulness
and thankfulness to God that their con-
dition was no worse. I have heard
hopeful accents from the plodding char-
woman, that have made me ashamed, as
Wordsworth stood rebuked before the
`leech-gatherer, upon the lonely moor.'
Let England look to it. These women,
mothers of men, are abandoning her
shores for foreign lands. When good
and dutiful children desert the maternal
home, what provocation must they have
had from the parent?

`In the year ending Lady-day 1859,'
said the London Times of February 15th,
1860, `England and Wales spent five
million seven hundred and ninety-two
thousand nine hundred and sixty-three
pounds in the relief of the poor. It is
estimated that on July 1st, 1859, nine
hundred and ninety-seven thousand sev-
en hundred and ninety-six paupers were
receiving relief in or out of the work-
house in this part of the empire. This
is near a million of persons, at an aver-
age cost of about five pounds sixteen
shillings a head, a considerable improve-
ment on the previous year. The com-
putation is, that every sixteenth person,
or one person in every three households,
is a pauper, hanging like a dead weight
on the industry of the other fifteen.
This, too, is only one form of charity,
beside untold millions spent in endowed
alms-houses, hospitals, asylums for every
imaginable infirmity, coal-funds, cloth-
ing-funds, charity-schools, voluntary la-
bor-rates, church-collections, alms done
in secret, and several hundred other
species of benevolence.'

Vainly does an American strive to
realize such a state of society. Its ef-
fects are visible in the hatred of the
poor toward the rich, which, if things
continue as they are, will ultimately
produce a war of classes. The work-
houses and other alms-houses are always
filled. There may be brief intervals
when trade is brisk, and statesmen brag
of the prosperity of the country, but
these are only as the sane moments of
a delirious patient. The general health of
the community must not be judged from
these. When in a year that it confesses
is a favorable one, the leading political
journal admits the proportion of paupers
subsisting on alms to be one to fifteen,
what must be the proportion in periods
of great mercantile depression, which
recur more frequently as time advances?
I can not at all agree with Mr. Emerson,
that England has not within her the ele-
ments of decay. She has. Her mari-
time supremacy is gone; her commer-
cial advantages have vanished. In the
world's market she possesses a stall,
and nothing more. If it is better sup-
plied than the stalls of some nations in
the same market, it is, in its turn, infe-
rior to those of others. I can not say,
with her enemies, Let her decay. But I
do bid her look to it in time, for her
present condition is not one of promise.