"THE BITTER CRY OF OUTCAST LONDON."

Grey River Argus, Volume XXX, Issue 4771, 4 January 1884, Page 4

"THE BITTER CRY OF OUTCAST LONDON."

(PALI MAIL GAZETTB.) A very remarkable pamphlet is in the Press which bears the above title. Although it is published presumably in the interest of an evangelistic scheme of the Nonconformist denominations, the facts of which it reminds us are sufficiently important to deserve the attention of all. The author, who begins by remarking that there is no more hopeful sign than the increased attention which is being given to the outcast classes of Society, admits that the ugly fact remains — and. needs to be faced — that seething in the very centre of our great cities, concealed by t:>e thinnest crust of civilization and decency, is a vast mass of moral corruption, of heart breaking misery and absolute godlessnes3, and that scarcely anything has been done to take into this awful slough the only influences that can purify or remove it. Convinced that it is high time'some combined and organised effort was made by all denominations of Christians, though not for denominational purposes, the London Congregational Union determined to open in several of the lowest and most needy districts of the metropolis suitable mission halls, as abase of operations for evangelistic work. They accordingly made a diligent search, and some of the results of the inquiries made are set forth in a pamphlet entitled " The Cry of the Outcast Poor of London," from which we make the following extracts : —

"THB BEST-FATING FKOPEKTY IN LONDON." . Few have any adequate conception of what the pestilential human rookeries are where tens of thousands of the London poor are crowded together. To get into them you have to penetrate courts reeking with poisonous and malodorous gases arising from accumulations of sewage and refuse scattered in all directions, and often flowing beneath your feet ; courts which the sun never penetrates, and which are never visited by a breath of fresh air. You have, to ascend rotten staircases, which threaten to give way beneath eveiy step, and which in some places have already broken down, leaving gaps that imperil the limbs and lives of the unwary. You have to grope your way along dark and filthy passages swarming with vermin. Then, if you are not driven back by the intolerable stench, you may gain admittance to the dens in which these thousands of beings herd together. Should you ascend to the attic, where at least some approach to fresh air might be expected to enter from open or broken window, you find that the sickly air which finds its way into the room has to pass over the putrefying carcasses of dead cats or birds, or viler abominations still. Here is a hole in the wall which has been repaired by the landlord. He has done it by nailing a few pieces' of an old soap-box over the place, and for this has put threepence a week extra upon the rent ! And this is the bestpaying property in London! Three shillings, four and sixpence, as much as six shillings, a week is readily paid for one of these horrible rooms. Houses that have been condemned by the authorities as unfit for habitation are very gold-mines to sleek speculators, who fatten upon the wretchedness of the poor. OVERCROWDING. Every room in these rotten and reeking tenements houses a family, often two. In one cellar have been found a father, mother, three children, and four pigs ! In another room is a man ill with smallpox, his wife just recovering from her eighth confinement, and the children running about half naked and covered with dirt. Here are seven people living in an underground kitchen, and a little dead child lying in the same room. Another apartment contains father, mother, and six

children, two of whom are HI with Bcarlet fever. In another nine brothers and sisters, from 29 years of age downwards, live, eat, and sleep together. Here is a mother who turtn her children into the street in the early evening because she lets her room for immoral purposes until long after when the poor little wretches come back again if they have not found some miserable shelter elsewhere. ONE INEVITABLE EESUCT. Immorality is but the natural outcome of conditions like these. "Marriage," it has been said, "as an institution is not fashionable in these districts." .And this is only the bare truth. Ask if the men and women living together in these rookeries are married, and your simplicily will cause a smile. Nobody knows. Nobody cares. Nobody expects that they are. Incest is common ; and no form of vice and sensuality causes surprise or attracts attention. The only check upon communism in this regard is jealousy, and not virLue. The vilest practices are looked upon with the moat matter-of-fact indifference. Entire courts are filled with thieves, prostitutes, and liberated convict?. In one street are 35 houses, 32 of which are known to be brothels. In another district are 43 of these houses, and 428 fallen women and girls, manj of them not more than 12 years of age. A neighborhood whose population ia returned at 10,100 contains 400 who follow this immoral traffic, their ages varying from 13 to 50 j while the moral degradation of the people is deplorable. Some idea may be formed from an incident which was brought to our notice An East-end missionary rescued a young girl from an immoral life, and obtained for her a situation with people who were going abroad. He saw her to Southampton, and on his return was violently abused by the girl's grandmother, who had the sympathy of her neighbors, for having taken away from a poor old woman her means of subsistence. DRIVEN TO DRINKING. The misery and sin caused by drink in these districts have often been told. In the district of Euston road is one publichouse to every 100 people, counting men, women, and children. Immediately around one chapel in Orange street, Leicester square, are 100 gin-places, most of them very large; and these districts are but samples of what exist in all the localities which we have investigated. Look into one of the glittering saloons, with its motly, miserable crowd, and you may be horrified as you think of the evil that is nightly wrought there; but contrast it with any of the abodes which you find in these fetid courts, and you will wonder no longer that it is crowded. THE EARNINGS OP THE VERY POOR. There are those who endeavour to live honestly — and they outnumber the dishonest — but what are their wages? A child seven years old may easily make 10s 6d a week by thieving, but what can he earn by such work as match box making, for which 2£d a gross is paid, and the makers have to find their own fire for drying the boxes, paste, and string? Before he can gain as much as the young thief, he must make 56 gross of matchboxes a week, or 1296 a day, which is impossible. Women, for the work of trouser finishing (i.e., sewing in linings, making buttonholes, and stitching on the buttons), receive 2gd a pair, and have to find their own thread. For making men's shirts they are paid lOd a dozen; lawn tennis aprons, 3d a dozen; babies' hoods, from Is 6d to 2s 6d a dozen.

TERRIBLE DESTITUTION. Amidst all this misery and squalor heartbreaking scenes are inevitable. The Rev. Archibald Brown, during a personal visitation, found a family living at the top of an otherwise empty house. The husband had gone to try and find some work. The mother, 29 years of age, was sitting on the only chair in the place in front of a grate destitute of any fire. She was nursing a baby only six weeks old, that had never had anything but one old rag round it. The mother had nothing but a gown on, and that dropping to pieces; it was all she had night or day. There were six children under 13 years of age. They were barefooted, and the few rags on them scarcely covered their nakedness. In this room, where was an unclothed infant, the ceiling was in holes. An old bedstead was in the place, and seven sleep on it at night, the eldest girl being on the floor. CHILD-MISERY. The child misery that one sees is the most heartrending and appalling element in these discoveries; and of this not the least is the misery inherited from the vice of drunken and dissolute parents, and manifest in the stunted misshapen, and often loathsome objects that we constantly meet in these localities. Here is one of three years old picking up some dirty pieces of bread and eating them. We go in at the doorway where it is standing, and find a little girl 12 years old. " Where is your mother 1 ?" "In the madhouse." " How long has she been there?" Fifteen months." Who looks after you 1 ?" Tlie child, who is sitting at an old table making matchboxes, replies, "I look atter my my little brothers and sisters as well as I can. " ' ' Where is your father?" ' ' He has been out of work three weeks, but he has gone to a job of two days this morning." Another house visited contained nine motherless children. The mother's death was caused by witnessing one of her children being run over. The eldest was only 14 years old. All lived in one small room, and there was one bed for five. Here is a poor woman deserted by her husband, and left with three little children. One met with an accident a few days ago and broke his arm. He is lying on a shake down in one corner of the room, with an old sack round him. And here, in a cellar kitchen, are nine little ones, without food and scarcely any clothing.