THE LONDON POOR.

Waikato Times, Volume XXII, Issue 1801, 22 January 1884, Page 3

THE LONDON POOR.

The London correspondent of the Otago Daily Times writes : — The poor we have always with us, but it is only when the papers are very short of news that the poor and their friends have an opportunity of making themselves heard. The present autumn has been exceptionally dull, and so the papers have been inundated with "Poor Men's Politics," " Dwellings of the Poor," "The Bitter Cry of Outcast London," and similar literature. Even Lord Salisbuiy has taken up the paiable, but whether he really feels the sympathy be professes is doubtful. Ii is more probable that he is tiying to incite the country into calling for immediate legislation on the subject, which would oblige the Go\ eminent to lay aside other ireasiues th.it are in an advanced state of preparation. The schemes that aie put forward for the improvement of the London poor are very \ arious, but not very practicable. One writer thinks that the rookeries they inhabit should be palled down, and decent houses built in their place. But the rent of these decent houses would be too high for the very poor, and the more the number of rookeries is 1 educed, the greater is the population that must be squeezed into thorookeues that remain. Another suggests that the minimum puce of labour per hour should be the value of a four pound loaf of bread. A third would establish societies for lending money to the poor at alow rate of interest. But loans cannot be made without some security that they will be repaid, and what si'Ciuity c.in be expected fi om people who In eby making matchboxes at 2jd the gross, or who do o>ld jobs at the docks for the simcrate of pay ? Many aio the theories put foi ward to account for tins state of thing. Some attribute it to diunUcnucss, othcia sec in it the effect of e.uly and impiudent maiuages, and seem to think it is as great a ciime to hung a child into the world as to put one out of it. Others again .say it is not the want of money, but the sup^ifinity of it, that is the cause of all the misohiet. Theie is n.oie capital among ua than can be well invested. The best investment is land ; heii'e theie is a licice competition foi land, which keeps the puce veiy lu'^h. When building sites aic dear louts must bo high ; when lenU aie high the pooi must live in slums ; theiefoie the engtossment by a few of what is essential to .ill ib "the miseiy." A powei fill article on this subject was published in the Daily News ot Novembers by George It. Sims, the popular di<amati-<t Theie aie few who know the under side of London better than Mr Mms. In the eailv pait of this ypar he spent two months in visiting the woist (juaiteis, of London, and the imptession on Ins mind was as " a vioion of hell more temble than the immortal Florentine's ; and this was no poet's dieam — it was a teuible truth, ghastly in its reality, heart breaking in its intensity, and the doom of the impiisoned bodies in this modem Inferno was as houibleas any that Dante depicted foi his toi tuied souls.' Two piaetical suggestions which Mr Kirns makes aic, that the labouring clashes should be sopaiated fiom the cuminal classes, and the old fiom the yoii'ig. In the ehildicn who aie now growing up, and who have atterded the Boaid school-., he sees the gicat hope of the lefoiinei ; but they ii. ust be kept fiom the contaminating influence of their eldeis.