"IN DUBLIN'S FAIR CITY."

Auckland Star, Volume XLIV, Issue 303, 20 December 1913, Page 9

"IN DUBLIN'S FAIR CITY."

NOISOME SLUMS AND SORDID SCENES. POVERTY AND WRETCHEDNESS. The suicidal labour war that has been raging so fiercely in Dublin has drawn the attention of the Isritish public to the great poverty and misery which prevail in that city even in times of harmony and prosperity, but no one, save those who have themselves visited the Irish capital and walked round its slums at different hours and different seasons can truly realise the misery, the ugliness, and the hopelessness of this great festering sore that saps at the city's strength. It is not that there is a large criminal element—indeed, for its size and importance Dublin is comparatively free of the malefactor —but it is ABTECT. HOPELESS. INHERITED

POVERTY. the accumulation of centurfes, which the new industries which tTle city possesses are powerless to dispel or alleviate- Only ten yards from the fashionable thoroughfares and yon are into slumdom and misery. Here, in the busy open street, milady's limousine purrs at the pavement edge and milforcrs -carriage prances its stately way past, and there, a few paces away, slatternly women huddle over their haskets of fruit or fish or vegetables, and fill the air with their raucous cries, "Get two apples a penny or four plums." shness the fruit-seller to passers by. There, seated on the pavement edge, are fish-sellers with a few odd pieces of cod, a herring or two, and some mackerel resting in a basket which reposes in the gutter. The more pretentious of this trade, the "capitalists," I suppose, expose their fish for j sale on an old perambulator with a board stretched across. And the women, purchasing their morrow's dinner, lift the fish, feel them, weigh them, then ask the price, and either baggie or pass on. Alons the streets the open-fronted butchers' and provision merchants' shops display their piles of pickled pigs' heads split in twain, their sodden heaps of boiled pigs' trotters —tnreepencp a ponnd the former—not dear, is it? Yet the wearied assistants in their greasy, once white jackets arc busy disputing prices with hard-faced women. At the corner of the street, under the light of a friendly street lamp, the book-seller plies his trade. "Here y'arc. all cheap books; all cheap books. Chic penny trays any book on the stall," and the silent crowd inspect book after book, seeking for something suitable "Have you any books by Charles Dickens?" asks a pallid youth who has already a bundle of magazines under his arm. "Here your are."David Copperficld," says the man. rnnning his hand over the barrow and producing a tattered volume. "I've just read that." replies the youth faltcrrngly. "I bought it from vou'last Saturday." "Here's the

'Pickwick Paper-.' then, very :*ood book, very humorous."' continues the hoarsevoiced hawker, with all the authority of

a well-read critic, "only twopence." The price seemed to frighten the youth, but be looks, and goes off finally with the book under his arm. A neighbour-

ing street is the HOME OF THE FUKXTITKE TRADE.

but you must walk warily, lor almost the whole breadth is occupied with a heterogeneous assortment of household foods." Against the wall stand wardrobes, chests of drawers, and dressing tables, flanked by bedsteads with broken rails and (but not always though) a solitary remaining battered knob. On the bedsteads lie wire mattresses, black, broken, and sagging, like a topsail flying in a breeze. Here and there a top-stand or a table maintains a precarious footin- while fenders and fire-irons fill in odd spaces, and tarnished mirrors and rusty prints are balanced in unexpected comers. Off tbe street runs a narrow lane all but covered over by the sloping roofs of the open booths on both sides. A gutter runs along the middle of the stoSe-flagged court: a few shawled women gossip at one booth, as they inspect the piles of cast-off clothing v posed for sale or rummage amidst the heap of old boots and shoes. The owner keep watch in the gloomy of I their booths. Not a breath of wind is 1 stirring in the noisome court, and Ithe SMELL OF FOETID GARMENTS ifl FILLS THE AIR.

In another part of the city, under the lk _j„ of St. -Patrick's, stand tne £5 ***■ built by ST& a member of the Guinneste fa.mdy, to whom Dublin owes so much, where for a nominal sum -the street trader can obtain a good stand to expose his (or rather her I good's under more comfortable and hygienic conditions. Porcelain counter with water supply are provided tor fish haiw-kerb, where fis-b may be laid on dn more sanitary surrounding than the gutter and «B alttemtam filth and infection, nothing, too, « P"t up for Bale there, and it is «*«T«* U, | *• watrfh these women of a Sunday offering tiheir goods for sale. Tn a corner of the hufldinff, perhaps, three independent traders" are rarrvinfr on their business simultaneously. "One and six. one and five one and four, one and three, bliouus one' s-haking a jacket and holding ot up to the attentive women who. hiurged in .their shawls, crowd round Wic stalls No o-irment is laid down. A not too clean" nor too well kept blouse is produc-ed -"N incpence. eight pence, sevenpence, sixpence, firepence," continues j the saleswoman in her sing-song voice.] and picks up another garment, when I still no bid is evoked. And only a stonethrow from this scene of poverty and wretchedness rises the venerable Cathedral of St. Patrick, through whose lofty aisles the swelling orsan booms its hymns of praise and the sunbeams fall through the "storied' -windows richly dight'" on to the spot wTi-ere Dean Swift and Stella sleep side by side, deaf to the calumnies and controversies of succeeding operations. What a contrast between the grimy, foetid squalid hovels around and the noble dimensions and inspiring architecture of Ireland's National Church! In the centre of the city one is struck -by the number of ■beggars about, and their pentina-city. The soft-tongned flower-girls follow the paeseis-lbv—"Will the koind lady buy a V' The newsboys importune with a touching wh'ino-"For. tba' Mytil. sorr." Ragged, barefoot urchins hold up the t>ai£cTS-by with their "Please, mister, •have Vfra got any cigarette pictures?'' or their doleful, wttispcrin? whine, "Please, sir. can you spare a ha'penny?" And their voice dies away in a pitiful fashion that would- melt the heart of anyone—but a residenter. At night, too. in the quiet streets of the suburbs women and girls of tender years accost and follow one with their melting appeals—•'Will the -koind genstleman spore a aopper?" and end in a. husky ''Gawd bless you." But you have only to refuse to hear their tones change to impudence ami truculence. Still, one -must not be to>i> hard on them when one knows the poverty and misery that they have ooma 'from, and the hopeleee outlook on life

thrit their c unroundings must give them. It's a heavy heritage from bygone centuries, slums and poverty such as tihese, and it's a bard problem thait must be taclded in a systematic and businesslike fashion. F<mr millions of money has been estimated- as the cost of decently housing the .poor of Dublin, and it would be four millions well spent to clean 'ont this foul blot on the country, and make "Dublin's fair crty" a fair city in truth, ajid in harmony wibh the incomparably ibeautiful and varied scenery in Which it has the good fortune to -be set.