The Slums of Johannesburg

Southland Times, Issue 19197, 7 November 1903, Page 2 (Supplement)

The Slums of Johannesburg

(By EDGAR WALLACE, in the Daily Mail). Take my arm and come with me. Swiftly through the atreets of Johannesburg, past the shops ablsi/o with light, past the loitering crowd that saunters idly, past the thronged, theatres where bursts the melody and spasmodic cadences of applause reach the ear through opening doors. Keep out of the light — the cold, white steadfast lights that line the mile-long streets ; let us creep away , into the sideways where • are the tumble-down tin shanty of Rainsammy and the dirt-beg Timed windows of Petrifski — Isaac, the son of Joseph—behind which this very man is thread- I ing a needle by the light of a flicker- 1 ing candle. You will see him still at work when you return, this same Petrifski ; well into the night he will work, plying his needle and dreaming alone of— who knows- what ? Then he will draw a filthy blanket over his greasy form and sleep till the morning sun awakens him, and then again the needle and the day-long dream and the candle's successor. But our business is not with him ; only we must pass the road in, which he dwells before we get to the cast. He sits in his filth and his toil, and the memory of Poland is a boundary post between East and West, between Orient and Occident. THE TIN TOWN. Beyond, the houses grow bewilderingly various. Shops, leisurely started with some dim idea of being beautiful, have finished by becoming. patcMly tin. The builder has never finished. Unsentimental necessity grasped him by the throat, thrusting him aside to make room for a hundred aliens. They did not object to unfinished work. The window-sashes were nevier painted, and some of the panes were never put in, and tcKlay, behind redpainted sashes and glassless windows the proscribed of Poland live happily enough. We are out of the j-ange of the white merciless arc light — that disciple of Truth that emphasises our wrinkles and traces the patches on our threadbare coats. Here the light is more mellow, more pleasing. It is si yellow light and none 100 bright, and here the houses are tin. They are bright enough. There is music here. Vice, gilUed thinly, has its votaries, its high priest, and its temples— little tin- temples scented with Florida water. The tin town continues beyond this, but the lower end is; silent. So silent that you might think you had by accident happened upon a colony living up to the standard set by the moral Mr Franklin- Early to bed they apparently are. No sound breaivs the silence of the quiet night, no light gleams in any window, no smoke rises from the crazy rourtyards. Early to rise you know they are, for daybreak sees this little colony alive, with bjLmboo rod and laden basket, chattering, running, loading, and trading. For this is the Chinese quarter. Knock softly on one of the iron gates. There is no answer. Here is a door, "The Hoki Laundry," Knock here, and if anybody conies invont some laundry urgently required by a fictitious client. But. nobody will come. CHINATOWN. But I have not brought you here for the pleasure of knocking at an unresponsive door. I knew all along that it would not be opened to you. But in a few minutes the -gates of Chinatown will be opened to us, and Chinatown, obsequious and smiling, will greet us with injured surprise and lamblike innocence. For the police are very close at hand ; all the while we have been walking this way they have been shadowing us on either hand. You may not niivc seen them, but they have been ciose enough. And now— watch. They appear like magic from side streets and unsuspected alleys. ' In ones, in twos, in threes. And they are coming to wards us.i Did I tell you we have one of the chiefs of police with us ? There is no noise, no melodramatic whistle. A whispered word of command, and two men have scaled the iron gateway and have dropped into darkness on the other side. A second more, and the cjate graves open 611 rusty hinges, and we an* inside. It is rather disappointing at first. There is nothing suggestive of the Flowery Land— no pagodas or tea-houses or joss-houses, only three sides of a • garbage-strewn square, ranged around which are the sordid tea-shanties of John. But it strikes you immediately that nobo-iy -is asleep. In fact, everybody i^ wide awake. A dozen Chinamen 01 all sizes and ages are sitting around a red-hot brazier, on which some mess is stewing, and all the little bousos that have not lights have smouldering wicks— •which is sigm-fteant. .Somebody flashes an electric torch over the deserted hovel. The hastilyextinguished candle still glows, and its smell fills all space. There js a closed door in one corner of the apartment. The. sergeant ''puts his shoulder to it, ami the sergeant being a man of many pounds, it gives. There is a passage, and there are some steps leading downward, and there is another door ' outlined in flight. This yields to a push. •£ "'THE GAJME pF FAN-TAN. We— that is, you, the police, and I —do not apologise, even though we have obviously broken up what promised to be a successful evening. The curiously-coloured board supported lon a trestle 'table, and the weird, pawn-liko pieces scattered at our unceremonious intrusion, are implements employed in the game of fantan. It'is i an institution that POi

Xi, tho Chow, carries away from his fatherland, it is the outward and visible demonstration of his patriotism. John Ho Xi, Wuiihi, Ho Ku, and "Chow Ke, in no wise perturbed, sit around the wall of 1 tho dug-out iji which this classical gaiue is played. There are four vacant places at the board, and there- is a trap door near the roof to which a ladder ascends. The banker has departed. Gambling is a crime, even in Johannesburg, and the players fall in, out- , side, from whence they will march to the police-station with great docility. There is another door leading from the gambling-den. It is locked, evidontly from tho other side, but the sergeant's shoulder is better than a skeleton key. Crash ! The room is bare except for a frame bed and a table. On this is a candle spluttering in its socket. On the bed lias a man who does not move, his eyes are half-closed, his hand grasps a pipe, and the sickening stench of opium nils the room. "Wake up, Johnny, where 's your pass, eh ?" Leave them to arouse him, aud follow tho police captain to tho joss- j house. The priest opens the door of a tin shanty, in na wise differing /rom tho dozen about, except that the interior resembles for all the world a largo-sized tea-chest turned inside out. Here, gold on black, curtain moral precepts of Confucius crawl. up the walls like so many auriferous spiders. On the altar is a small image of a black-bearded god. Before the altar, joss-sticks, wooden swords, spears, and tinselled l>aubles. Not so very inspiring, and certainly nothing to justify the unpleasant scowl of the priestly custodian. Now back again to the opium room. There is a group of policemen round the bed of the dreamer. "Can't you rouse him?" 1 asked. Then I looked and saw how unnecessary was my question. The Chinese have a pretty little cemetery of their own near Braamfonlein.