SLUM "PLAGUE SPOTS."

Dominion, Volume 7, Issue 1927, 9 December 1913, Page 9

SLUM "PLAGUE SPOTS."

TWINGES OF CONSCIENCE IN DUBLIN. 1 MUNICIPAL IDEAS OF HGUSING. Tt need not be suppose'd that liccanso neither men nor masters are doing more than repeating their orunqualified challenges that matters are now whore they were at the beginning of the strike, says the Dublin correspondent ot the "Daily News" uncit-r date October 24. Tho loss to Dublin trades increases every day, for it is iiidismitablc that the men and women are still standing by Liberty llall; the ouays are choked with merchandise whieh cannot be moved, and tho Lill'cv is full of idle craft. A few vessels belonging to lines not tinder the ban of the strikers .show activity, but- Liberty I!a!l continues to keep inactive the establishments of tho Murphy group of employers, villi tho exception of the tramwavs. The trams are now running freely, but soldiers with fixed bayonets guard the depots.

Still Running. The sight of a jaunting car with four policemen, convoying a carman who drives an empty trollcv. is so common that nobody here noiv remarks it. Tho city is pieturesquo with hosts of giant policemen, who are regarded with instant and unqualified respect by the populace generally. There is plenty of solid reason here for that, of course, though an Englishman cannot help fooling that much is very wrong where a crowd will, break into a swift gallop when several of a row of constabulary —not one under 6ft.—mako unexpected movements. The men still say they can hold out till the masters are tired of it; their leaders declare tlioy arc willing to negotiate, and. they have informed the Peace Committee here that they will agree to accept a mediator appointed by the committee. But they aliirm resolutely that they will never limit the powers of their organisation to the point wkero tho masters can afford to iimore it. It is hard to sco why they should. Yet that at present summarises the masters' demands, though there arc signs that, ill spite of their joint reply to Sir George Askwith's report, some of tho employers are already weary of a dispute which is seriously crippling their resources.

Illuminated iniquities. But the current industrial dispute is now' diminished by the larger issues which have been raised by ijarkiiiism. Tho dynamic and perhaps iniraetablo man who has caused the great pother may be some of the things his enemies call him—he could not very well be ailbut perhaps lie may find graeo through the tact that ho has made every party hero realise that now, and not at any other time, they must get to work to put the town 111 order. He has illuminated—to the dismay of many important and superior people—iniquities tolerated so lone; that tlicy could be taken' as non-existent if one kept to Sackvillo Street and Grafton Street. ' Larkin lias struck a most marked division through the ranks of the Nationalists. It is so marked that tho result of tho next lminiripai election in Dublin can bo already predicted. Tho result will differ largely from that Dublin Corporation which is now so constituted that most responsible folk hero hesitate to entrust it with a housing scheme, though well awaro how urgent is some solution of that problem. But Larkin lias dono more than that. If lie has nob created a public conscience ho has at least made tho conscience of many worthy and sensitive souls re. niarkably active and outspoken. That has been very plain all this week in Dublin. Some Catholic Trullt. At the Congress of the Catholic Truth Society in Dublin recently many emphatic things were said, liven the anarchism of Larkin was partly condoned because of the heated compost in which it proved so instantly fertile. Said tho Very Ilev. I'athcr Alo.vsius, speaking of the city's tenements: Old, shapeless rooms, with low, bulged roofs and rotting floors, unci reached by rickety, narrow stairs, courts, and alleys, fetid and iilthy, where tho arrangements for tho

common nccessarics of life aro primitive and revolting, add to all the positive dingo.;- to ilt'o from unsound structure an absolute menace . to nublio lieaitli from tho germination of diseaso. Tho slums of Dublin aro plague spots and brooding bods of tuberculosis, fever, and other deadly and loathsome diseases, and from a Christian standpoint more lamentable still: they aro nurseries tip immorality. Not for olio moment would I suggest that our poor pen. pie aro not moral people, for they are tho most mora! people lis tho world. Hut when you make people live and breathe, and think, and receive impressions in such surroundings you are trying their virtues, and are putting their moral and Catholic instincts to a severe strain. I quote that at length, because it confirms what some may have thought were, perhaps tho unconsciously exaggerated pictures of a correspondent Tatliev hypersensitive to bod sights and bad smells. Nobody could go through Dublin slums without feeling the same way about it. The corporation's Misdeeds. It must not bo thought tlic Dublin Corporation is doing nothing. That is the worst of it. They have their own municipal buildings, and some private companies own modern industrial barracks.

I fancy most people would prefer to live in ono of the tenement houses if assured it would stand up-whiln they slept.. The Corporation now promises to clear a certain area and build bouses there. Hut so uneducated to modern needs is the grouped civic intelligence fiore tiiat it actually plans to build houses with but two and Ihree rooms. There will be mi playgrounds for the children —nothing at nil to suggest that the labourer and arlisan are more than creatures which require but slid lor. HANGMAN AND PREACHER. o DKATH OK .TAMES BKMtY. The death is announced at Bradford (England) of James Berry, who was hangman of lCnglnnrl from the death of Marwood in 1883 until 1892. After acting as a boot salesman and a policeman, Berry carefully qualiti-gd for the new post, and wrote to tho Edinburgh Magistrates: "I have seen Mr. Caleraft execute throe convicts nt .Manchester 13 years ago, and should you think fit to give nic tho appointment I would endeavour to merit your approval." lie rxecuiod over 200 people, arul nuulp tliroo vain attempts to linn;* .lohn I.ee, who was cnndi'iiufell to death in IBM-I for the murder of a woman at Babliacome, neni; Torquay. Leo's sentence was then commuted to penal servitude lor lite, and lie was aflerwards 'released. Berry's appearance in no way suggested the executioner, and he was spoken of as a kind-hearted man. He turned evangelist afler his retirement, which be said was due to tho discovery that two persons he had executed had been/ innocent- Ho acted as a lav preacher in his native town, and started a poultry farm.