["Do the poor make the slums, or the slums make the
poor?"--_Henry Lazarus, in "Landlordism."_]
[Illustration]
Is it the poor wot makes the Slums, or the Slums wot makes the poor?
Well, that's the question, Guv'nor, and I've 'eared it arsked afore,
And the arnser ain't so easy, if you wants to be O.K.
Don't suppose as _I_ can settle it, but I'll have my little say.
My old friend Mister LAZARUS, now, he ups and sez, sez he,
The great Ground Landlord is the great _prime_ cause. "Yah!
fiddlededee!"
Cries the House-Farmer; "Slums is Slums, acos the Poor is _Pigs_!"
"You try 'em, friend philanthropist! They'll play you proper rigs."
Yus, there's two sides to heverythink, wus luck! That's where
we're fogged.
Passiges like foul pigstyes, gents, and backyards like black bogs,
Banisters broke for firewood, and smashed winders stuffed with rags,
These make the sniffers slate the poor, Perticular if they're wags.
Well, gents, you know, it's _this_ way. Just you fancy yerselves
_born_
In a back-slum like Ragman's Rents. 'Old 'ard, don't larf with
scorn!
Some on us _is_ born there, yer know; it might ha' bin _your_ luck,
_If_ yer mother'd bin a boozer, and yer father'd got the chuck.
Of course _yourn_ was respectable; _mine_ wosn't; there's the diff.!
Ah! things like this ain't settled by a snort or by a sniff.
Jest fancy hopening yer eyes fust time in a dark dive,
Or a sky-parlour where a plarnt o' musk won't keep alive.
Emagine, if yer washups can, some ten foot square o' room,
With a stror-heap in one corner, and a "dip" to light the gloom;
With the walls dirt-streaked with damp-lines, outside, a drunken
din,
And hinside, a whiff of sewer-gas in a hatmosphere of gin.
Some on you carn't emagine there's sech 'orrors on the earth;
But there are, you bet your buttons. Who'd select 'em for their
_birth_?
Not you, not me, not no one, if you asked 'em, I expect;
But yer place o' birth yer see, gents' jest the thing yer _carn't_
select.
If you're born where streets is narrer, and where rooms is werry
small,
Where you've damp sludge for a ceiling, rotting plarster for a wall;
Where yer carn't eat, sleep, wash yerselves, or lay up when you're
sick,
Without tumbling one o'er tother, wy, yer _sinks_, gents, pooty
quick.
_Sinks!_ Yes, when wot yer lives in _is_ a sink, or somethink wus;
With a drunkard for a mother, and some neighbour for a nuss;
With the gutter for yer playground, and a 'ome from which yer
shrink,
Can you wonder that poor Slum-birds is give o'er to Dirt and Drink.
Ah! them two D's goes together. Just you plant some orty Queen
In a rookery, in her kidhood, and then tell her to keep _clean_,
Wash 'er face, and mend 'er garments,--wich they're mostly
sewed-up rags,--
In six months she'd be a scare-crow, 'ands like sut, and 'air all
jags.
Wot yer washups don't quite tumble to's the fack as like breeds
like.
If you would himprove Slum-dwellers, at the Slum you fust must
strike.
Give us small dark 'oles to dwell in, and you must be jolly green
If you think folks bred in dirt like, are a-going to keep 'em clean.
When the sewer-rats take to sweetening and lime-washing _their_
foul 'oles,
And bright light and disinfectants are the fads of skunks and moles,
Then poor souls in cellar-dwellings and in jerry-builders' dens,
Will be smart as young canaries and as clean as clucking hens.
NOCKY SPRIGGINGS guyed me proper, in his chuckly sorter style,
With his thumb 'ooked orful hartful, and his chickaleary smile.
"JIM," sez he, "wot price _your_ jabber? Do yer think the blooming
blokes
Cares a cuss for me and you, JIM, any more than for our mokes?
"Shut yer face, you pattering josser! Dirt and Drink is good for
Rents!
If the Poor _wos_ clean and sober, where 'ud be their
cent-per-cents?
If it's Public 'Ouse 'gainst Wash 'Ouse, if it's Slumland _wersus_
Swipes,
_I_ am on for booze and backy 'stead o' drains and water-pipes.
"You may be _too_ jolly clean, JIM, and a precious sight _too_
light,
Were's the good to scrub yer skin orf! And if when a cove gits
tight,
Or would give his donah wot-for on the Q.T. _wot_ a lark
If there weren't no 'andy alleys, nor no corners snug and _dark_.
"If the Public--_and_ the Slops--wos always fly to wot _we_ done,
'Long o' widened streets and gas-light, wy we'd 'ave no blooming
fun.
Lagged for larrupping yer missus, nailed for boozing till yer nod?
Wy, you jabbering young Juggins, _we should always be in quod!_"
'Ard nut is NOCKY SPRIGGINGS--of the sort as make the slums,
'Cos there ain't much chance for cleanness, or for comfort, when
_he_ comes.
He's as 'appy in the dirt, gents, as a blowfly or a 'og;
Or poor Paddy in his tater-patch alongside of a bog;
He'd chop up 'is doors and winders for a fire to 'ot his lush,
Don't care a 'ang for decency, and never raised a blush.
But, arter my hexperience--and I've 'ad some down our court--
I believe that--fair at bottom--it's the Slum as makes _his_ sort.
Anyways I'm pooty certain, if we'd got more light and space,
And were not jammed up together in a filthy, ill-drained place;
If the sunlight could but see us, and the public _and_ the cops,
There would be less booze and bashing, fewer drabs and
drinking-shops.
Aye, and fewer NOCKY SPRIGGINGSES! I don't go for to say
As it's _all_ along o' Landlords, who'd rent 'ell, if 'twould but
pay;
But I've noticed you find fewest mice where there are lots of cats,
And where there ain't no rat-holes, well--yer won't spot many rats!
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