On one side there was a square, with trees that tried to look green in
summer, but in winter time stuck in scraggy form out of the
soot-peppered snow, with a beadle who wore a gold band round his hat and
lived in a lodge, out of which he issued every morning with a thin
rattan cane to keep away the boys; on the other side there was a row of
goodly mansions, with a mews for the horses and carriages of the
grandees who inhabited those mansions; and down between square and
mansions, hidden behind the mews, as if it was a brick-and-mortar snake,
there was Gutter-alley.
People said, how could such a dirty, squalid, unhealthy,
beggar-inhabited place get there between the mansions of the rich.
People said so to the parish officers, and the parish officers shook
their heads; not so much as to say that they did not know, but to imply
thereby, a great deal, as if the wickedness of the inhabitants had
something to do with it. Then people said so to the dwellers in
Gutter-alley in an ill-used fashion, to which Gutter-alley very
reasonably replied that it must get somewhere, which was perfectly true;
that it squeezed itself up as much out of the way as it could, which was
also quite true; that it--to wit, Gutter-alley--did not get between the
square and the row of mansions, but that the square came and sat upon it
on one side, and the row of mansions came and sat upon it on the other,
which was true again; and lastly, Gutter-alley said, where was it to go,
for it must have living room? Then people who knew its squalor said
that it was all very shocking, and that a meeting ought to be held. And
it was very shocking, but a meeting was not held; and Gutter-alley stood
where it had stood before, in the year of our Lord 1862, when there was
a very great exhibition building very close at hand; and Gutter-alley
remained an exhibition itself, staying as it did where, without much
effort, it could have thrown a stone into the grounds of a palace.