MOVE ON !

Evening Star, Issue 3369, 6 December 1873, Page 1 (Supplement)

MOVE ON !

Few persons can have read the death of e poor Joe in “ Bleak House ” without a tear, ’ Its counterpart is related in the Pall Mall * Gazette, of August I2th, with the additional || interesting fact, that although as a class such 3 ( unfortunates as Joe did exist, still Dickens’s 1 | youth that was “allays amovin-on” was a * | creation of his own, while poor Ryan figures L ' in the records of coroners’ inquests. “ There '(are probably,” observes the Gazett «», “no | two words in the English language more ' , forcible or capable of conveying a deeper j meaning than the ‘ move on ’ of the police- | j man. So long as these to whom the com--1 j mand is addressed have any home, be it ever ; so wretched, in the direction of which they I can keep moving, the words ‘ move on ’ are j only a rough reminder that the traffic of the streets must not be obstructed; but to the ! homeless, starving wanderer, they are of more serious importance. A sad story was 1 told at an inquest h«dd on Saturday, in ! Camden Town on the body of a man named Henry flyan, aged 32 years, and formerly ; the editor of a French newspaper which had i been suppressed by the authorities. Ryan i was brought to the St. Pancras Workhouse ! the other evening in a state of exhaustion. I His clothes, said the officials at the worb- ) house, were good but very dirty, and he j was ‘ a complete skeleton. ’ Every attention | was paid to him, but the effects of privation and exposure had obtained the upper hand, 1 and he died ; but, before he drew his last breath, he gave a short account of himself, which may serve to interest those who, after | a day's shooting on the moors, are enjoying j their claret and have a few minutes for light conversation. Ryan it seems bad endeavored to get a living by translating manuscripts ; I but as this did not prove a lucarative business, he left his lodgings suddenly, and since then had been walking the streets day and night. He had had, he said, no food for days except pieces of bread which he found on walls, fences, &c., during the day. He | at times slept on the grass in the parks, but ! at mght it was one continued ‘ move on, ! move on.’ We can well understand that : poor Ryan’s nerves must have been rather ! unstrung by this kind of life, more especially as he was suffering from consumption—his death being accelerated by that disease, though immediately caused by ‘ exhaustion and neglect.’ The jury returned a verdict accordingly, and Ryan was ‘ moved on ’ where no policeman’s voice can disturb him,”