The terrible crimes and miseries of the East End of London have
recently been brought into great prominence, and one of the
most distressing features of this subject is that considerable
numbers of these appallingly miserable characters were once
respectable and happy. They were the children of honorable
parents, they were trained in schools and sanctuaries, they were
members of rich and influential circles; then they chose the
down grade; they were first guilty of unbecomingness, then of
acts of graver misconduct; at length their friends lost sight
of them, they lost sight of their friends; then ever lower
lodging-houses, lower ginshops, lower pawnshops, until at last
those who had been tenderly nursed, educated in universities,
clothed in scarlet, were submerged in filth, crime, misery,
simply unutterable. All this dire catastrophe once seemed
impossible to them, as now it seems impossible to us; but
forget not that the doubtful ever passes into the bad, the bad
into the worse, the worse into the unspeakable.--W. L.
WATKINSON, “The Transfigured Sackcloth.”
(819)