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
shipping, 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 descended, 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 fog 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 rebuke 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 thankful, 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 suspecting 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 appetite to the first meal one gets on shore after a long
sea-voyage.
We were wearied with the day's annoyances, and as the streets were very
uninviting, we sat smoking segars in the coffee-room of the
establishment. As one person after another dropped in, we heard of the
increase of the fog outside, and, indeed, it had long since entered and
filled the apartment till the outline of the waiter, as he moved to and
fro in supplying the wants of the company, became indistinct, and his
head, whenever he approached the chandelier, radiated a glory. As I had
often read of a London fog in November, I judged this to be an excellent
opportunity for seeing one, and accepted my companion's proposal to
repair to the door of the hotel. The scene was like nothing else I ever
had witnessed. At the distance of five yards the light of a gas-lamp was
invisible. We could not distinguish each other's features as we stood
side by side. Stages, cabs, and coaches were creeping forward at the
rate of twenty yards in a minute, the drivers carrying glaring torches,
and leading the horses by their bridles. Even at this pace the danger of
a collision was imminent. Pedestrians, homeward bound, were at their
wits' end. As they could not have proceeded fifty paces in security
without a torch, they were each provided with one, but some of them
contrived to lose their way notwithstanding, and seeing us on the steps
of the hotel, halted to make inquiries. One man assured us that he had
been half an hour looking for the next street. The better to convince
myself of the density of the mist, I extended my arm to its full length
and tried to count my fingers. From ocular evidence alone, I certainly
could not have told whether I had four, five, or six.
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, somewhat 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
proposed 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 watching 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 constantly 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 active at such seasons. I afterward learned that in one of
the leading thoroughfares 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 vehicle 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 impossibility. 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.
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 fastened to the
shafts, and away they go, pell-mell, through the streets, every vehicle,
to the Lord Mayor's or Prime Minister's carriage, being compelled to
draw aside and give them room to pass. On this occasion their services
were not required, 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 searching for me in a wrong
direction. I ran, as I conjectured, in pursuit of his retreating
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 improper 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 whereabouts 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 compass.'
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 security for the payment of my expenses, I decided to
accompany him to an inn in the neighborhood, to which he undertook to
guide me. It was an indifferent place, being one of the gin-palaces for
which London is famous, but I was content, 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
reappeared 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 cordially 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 acknowledgments. 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 decently 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
themselves 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 inhabitants are not compelled
to rise until they choose.
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 resemblance
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, whisky, rum, and brandy, of various standards.
Others of a somewhat smaller size contained port, sherry, and Madeira
wines, or the adulterations which pass by their names, with an
undiscriminating public. When these vats were empty, they were filled
from barrels in the cellars 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 maudlin state to
that of rolling intoxication. Even children, whose size was so
diminutive that they had to stand on tiptoe to elevate their heads above
the counter, demanded and received their liquor, imbibing 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 falling, 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 advance 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 prevented my noticing any of the external features 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. Martin'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. Martin's Lane. Entering one of
these about noon--it was situated in Rupert street--I recognized the
first waiter who presented 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 yesterday.
He went away yesterday, sir, and took your trunks with him.'
'Took my trunks with him!' I exclaimed.
'Yes, sir; he said that you had gone on to Birmingham, by the
mail-train, and that he was to follow with the luggage.'
I almost reeled at the intelligence. The perfidy of the Scotchman was
manifest. He had taken me into the fog to lose me, and while I was
picturing his dismay at the accident which had separated us, and his
anxiety on my account, the scoundrel was appropriating my trunks and
valises. I hastened to confer with the proprietor of the hotel
respecting 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 immediately,' 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 smallest 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, Islington, Pentonville,
Shoreditch, Hackney, Whitechapel, Limehouse, Rotherhithe, with the
modern Pimlico, Knightsbridge, Old and New Brompton, Bayswater,
Paddington, St. John's Wood, Camden Town, Somer's Town, Kingsland,
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, however, 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, indeed, a wonderful building, considered _per se_, but
compare it with the Continental 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
cheerfully a dollar and a quarter to see a play of Shakspeare's
performed at the Haymarket 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 memories 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 mightiest dead. St. Paul's, Westminster Abbey, and all such
buildings, should be free as the streets to decent people, for genius
receives inspiration at such altars, and men fresh from the commonplace
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 proprietors! 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 forefathers were
cotemporaries with Shakspeare, 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 Wordsworth, 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.
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--admitted, 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 anxious
to do homage to _them_. The intellectually 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 recently 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 admission 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 estimated at one hundred and twenty
thousand. 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 yourself 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 spotless 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 dollar; 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
condition 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 conundrum 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
boarding-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 otherwise 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 horrible 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 contributions of the benevolent are here disposed of;
what one has, another lacks. Old coats, old boots and shoes, old gowns,
are freely bartered for tobacco and gin. Women from neighboring
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 herrings and fried sausages. After supper is finished,
a fiddler--one of their number, 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 dormitories 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 sometimes 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, shivering 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.
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 venture 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 indigence and
helpless hunger. They will break street-lamps and tradesmen's windows,
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 produced 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 unfortunate 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 catalogue of woes,
what shame and frenzied despair, it has ended!
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
struggling in the water. The moon shone brightly down, and her figure
was distinctly 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
afterward, 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 nourishment 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 before medical assistance could be procured. A
_post-mortem_ examination proved that she died from hunger.
Let no one say that there are charitable asylums enough in London to
furnish 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 country, 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 deserving 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 surviving
parent, sisters toiling for their brothers. And all done not only
without a murmur, but with cheerfulness and thankfulness to God that
their condition was no worse. I have heard hopeful accents from the
plodding charwoman, 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 seven hundred and ninety-six paupers were
receiving relief in or out of the workhouse in this part of the empire.
This is near a million of persons, at an average cost of about five
pounds sixteen shillings a head, a considerable improvement on the
previous year. The computation 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,
clothing-funds, charity-schools, voluntary labor-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
effects 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 elements of decay. She has. Her maritime supremacy is
gone; her commercial advantages have vanished. In the world's market she
possesses a stall, and nothing more. If it is better supplied than the
stalls of some nations in the same market, it is, in its turn, inferior
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.