SELF-SACRIFICE IN THE SLUMS.

Waikato Times, Volume XLIII, Issue 3483, 25 October 1894, Page 9

SELF-SACRIFICE IN THE SLUMS.

"You may talk aliout the easygoing generosity of 'professionals/ the ' lightly-earned, lightly spent' of the so-called Bohemian world ; but if you want to discover, the most surprising instances of true openheartedness,l would recommend you to prosecute your search amongst the very poor of London.- ' " One way and another, I've seen many years' service in the East End," continued the authority who recently made the above assertion to the writer, " and the examples I mention are but picked at random from scores of others that I could

furnish. " An incident that was related to me not half an hour ago will well serve to start with, Learning that a certain ruffianly fellow living in a court near by had been sentenced to three months' hard labour for some crime or other, I, knowing that he had a wife and three little children dependent upon him ventured to inquire what would become of them during his period of incarceration in prison. "'Oh, I dunno,'. replied the woman of whom the question was asked. ' Same as last time 'e was in gaol, I s'pose, I took one o'.the kids, and two others 'elped the ole woman.',

" And subsequent inquiry proved that on a previous occasion when the father had been locked up, his wife and children lived on the chatity of, their. poverty - stricken but-generous neighbours until his release,,

) "You'd be surprised, ,toOj to learn how many of these almost penniless beings,,' on coming into 'a bit o' luck,' no.matter how trivial it may be, remember some lessfortunate fellow creaturp, ..and voluntarily, divide their treasure with them. " I have known a man to whom half an ounce of tobacco had been presented walk half a mile in order to bestow a pipeful on a friend tO' whom a smoke was an equally rare luxury; and not long since, meeting an aged woman I knew hobbling along an alley isomer distance from her squalid home, I asked her where she was going.

••f " f Well, ray dear,' said she, as she drew; a public-house can from under her tattered shawl, 'l've 'ad •ari. a pint o' beer give me,, an' I'm takin' a sip down to Mother Barnes.'•: ;

.((*■" "Arid if you'll believe me, walking, behind: her, I noted how she administered three other sips to acquaintances encountered on the way, so you may reckon how much of ; the half-pint she had in the end left ovgr for herself,

"And it is amongst the women folk that the most startling instances of generosity and self-denial are to be* found. One woman well known to me, who only; by slaving day and night managed to make both ends barely meet,,used to every, morning regularly draw to the spot whereon he solicited alms the little roughly-made truck of a crippled lad, and as certainly bring him back again in the evening. '.''"'Bu'tit was one day early'lasfc month that I witnessed an act of accentric generosity that brought more fully home to me the fact of how deep i lies this feeling of good fellowship in; the. hearts of the poorest of the poor. >£,"■. Seeing ;■ a..-, fair - sized crowd gathered at a certain street corner, I stopped to ascertain the cause of its collecting; speedily,to . discover that a woman ;' f drunk and disorderly' was being taken to the police station. -• : > '■'' "Just as the• policeman was walking her, off a standing by • gave-an exclamation of surprise.

"■'Why,' its 1 - Jenny!' she cried. 'Poor thing.', she can't be locked up with no 'at ori.' ; And suiting the action of the word, she undid the strings of her' own bonnet and tied them round'the other's, chin. "When I tell you that of some' dozen other women looking on, not one washable to boast of other head-covering < than that afforded by their shawls, you can form your own opinion of the value of that apparently trivial act of charity." .'