SQUALID MISERY IN LONDON.

Waikato Times, Volume XXIX, Issue 2394, 12 November 1887, Page 2 (Supplement)

SQUALID MISERY IN LONDON.

Vkkv few are aware oi the misery that exists in London except those who have to consort, with others who arc in its midst. A writer in one of the London newspapers describes whatho saw recently when making an inspection one night. lie writes:—' 1 It was a little child. It lay in the gutter of the nanow street there, where any passing cab, or yonder fruitladen dray might, without any blamo to the driver, have ern-hed its life out. It. was so light in tny hand as I picked it, up, that, for a moment I wondered whether it, was indeed a living thing. Had it learned at ,-o early an ago to suffer and be still ? It seemed so, for it made no oiy. Not an abandoned babe, moreover ; for there, coiled np asleep in a doorway, lay its mother. The child had dropped from her relaxing arms and had rolled into the kennel. In the Strand, now vacant of all traffic, every doorway of the side streets of the thoroughfare single misery has taken refuge. Misery in company is here in Trafalgar square. A curious sight indeed, this “ finest sight,” as I then saw it. It was all dark, with a couchant mob of homeless vagabonds taking their rest on the stones. Not all in rags there, much black-coated misery was there. Such was he who presently tells me he was a city clerk, and who, to judge from his tongue and manner, may indeed have once done clerkly work. His pillow is a Daily Telegraph. This paper bedding allords a curious study. Most have such furniture to their resting places, and as I walk round I take notice what papers are most in use. The Kobo pillows most of those who are in rags. Black-coated misery takes its bod fittings from the Conservative press. One is a starving and homeless outcast, but otic respects the institutions of one’s country. Four hundred sleepers, men and women, promiscuously side by side, I count in the shadows of the finest hotels in the world. High np on his column stands over all one who spoke once of England and her expectations. That four hundred men and women and their children should thus bo flung on the pavement—starving, ah mdoned, in the very heart and centre of the luxury of the world—who has failed in his duty ? Far off gleams the light high up that tells ua that the people of England are even now being oared for. Her Majesty’s Commons are at work, and provision is being made for the common wealth. It is a sorry beacon, seen from a sorry sea.

As the day dawns we are back to Trafalgar-sqttare, where the silent reveille of a cold wind has awakened the sleepers. Some are sitting staring at the world; others are occupied over their sail toilets ; a woman there with a needlu and thread, a man here with a tooth brush and the water of the fountain —it is my ex-city clerk. To what another day are tiiese atising ? As I stand on Westminster Bridge the thought of that line comes to me which speaks nf the lying still of all this mighty heart. Lie still, the warmly-bedded and well-fed. As for the other? Well for them

Still there clings The old question : Will not 0 id do right ?’