CHAPTER XXI.

Te Aroha News, Volume VI, Issue 276, 27 June 1888, Page 3

CHAPTER XXI.

A DUN OK INIQUITY. I liN fche casb of London, in thafc part known as Bcthnal Green, are many strange places. Thi6ves and vagabonds of the worst kind , resort to certain streets in this locality. There are some streets in Bothnal Glreen where it is not safe for a stranger to walk alone. True, at times you may walk along these sLrcets and pass through them unmolested, while on trying the same experiment again, you may possibly be hunted by half a dozen young roughs and robbed of everything. In one of these streets, which for convenience shall be here called Ware-street, is a public-house, not .such a house as could be called an hotel, but a low-looking ' pab.' There is no pretence of respectability, even about the outside appearance. There is no [ deception ;it looks like what it i&. Yet, this house commands a high rental, the reason of which is soon told. The place is a little gold mine. To a man who understands his business, a man without scruples or principle of any kind, it is a fortune. The late proprietor retired from it «i rich man, and would not have left when he did had not certain transactions in which he had been mixed up forced him to beat a hasty retreat. The present proprietor had brought a considerable amount of money into the business. Would he leave it as well off as when he entered it? He had been persuaded to take the house by some of his particular friends— choice spirits — with whom he ,vas in the habit of .spending much of his time and money. He was just the fellow to do there, they had said, and as he waslooking out for something of the kind, why he couldn't do better, lie had not been here more than a year before he was terribly sick of it ; but he could not go. Why ? His friends who had persuaded him to come would not leb him. It did not .suit them to lose sight of him. He had been so mixed up with so many shady transactions that he lived in continual fear of being found out. He was not making money, he was losing it. He dioveagood tiadc, but he had traded in other things besides wines, spirits, beer and tobacco. He had been led by his friends to speculate, advancing money to enable them to prosecute nil manner of illicitworkswhich on the eve of dazzling success invariably turned out wrong. Instead of making a fortune in the place, he was pretty sure that lie would soon lose all he had— he was being rapidly drained. He was just keeping his house open to enrich others. It was not because his friends loved him that they woul.i not let him go, but because he was a u&cful tool in their hands ; if they wanted to borrow money they knew where to get it. lie was in a trap. He had let them know too much of his affairs, and he was in their power. They could do just what they liked with him, and he knew it. Miserable fool that he had been ! Why could ho not keep his own counsel 'I II he had taken hi.- wife's advice they would have been all right. If he had listened to her, they never would have come into this infernal hole. Thus he brooded. To drown thought he had rccoiu-e to frequent drams, until, from being but ;>, short year ago a smart, dapper fellow, he Mas now a bloated, shaky drunkard. And what of his w ife ? She, after using all the arguments she could think of to prc\eut his taking the house or having anything to do with such a set of blackguards as she called his ' pals,' and having tried in vain to induce him to leave the countiy, taking with them their little fortune, and settle in America or anywhere out of England, had at last accompanied him to this miserable place. She had tried hard to keep him ' straight,' she had used every means in ncr power, had coaxed him, had threatened him, all to no purpose. He would go wrong, and wrong he vent. And she who shared with him a momentous secret, a secret fraught with the greatest importance to othets as ■« ell as to themselves, was in constant dread lest, in his cups, he should let loose his tongue and place them in the power of the ruflians w horn he had chosen as his constant companions. "Her fcais were but too well grounded. When she became aware of the extent of his folly, when she knew that he had made a boast of whathitheito had been their secret, then she too took to the bottle as if that w ould do any good ! And here they weie, a pair of drunken, bloated wretches, allowing themselves to be plundered right and left, and treating those who robbed them as friends, well knowing that they were their worst enemies, yet not daring to tuin against them. The former proprietor had the upper hand of his customers, lie made a fortune. The customers now had the upper hand of the landlord— rhc tables wcie turned. In this house were carried on dog-fights, cock- fights, and man-fights. A rat-pit was kept, and any cruel sport was encouraged which could pander to the tastes of the worst type of humanity. In the days of the former proprietor women wore not allowed to get drunk on the premises Now it was a common thing for the house to be overrun with drunken women, the lowest of the low. Scenes were enacted that would make the 1 blood of the icadcr run cold. Ho may ask, where are the police ? The answer is —not here 1 The police wore seldom here, and when they were they found nothing to ! lead them to interfeie. The lioumj was a i nuisanco to nobody. They were all birds of a feathor in the neighbourhood. The landlord and his wife have appeared before in this story, tor they are the man and woman on whose evidence the decree I vi^i had been granted in the case of Ashford v. Ash ford and Berwick. Then they appeared as respectable domestic servants . now wo find them almost helpless drunkard?. In how short a time has the transformation taken place ! In the days when Jenkyn used to accompany his master to the villa at Twickenham, he was a smart good-looking fellow, and she, when she entered the service of Mrs Ashford, was a blooming damsel of very comely appearance. Thoso who had seen them in the days gone by would scarcely recognise them now — broken down, shaky drunkards, seemingly lost to everything that makes life dear to us.