The Foulness Of The Air And Filth Which This Entailed May Be Too Easily Imagined.

A couple of cases, taken almost at random, will sample scores as bad.

It is one of the darkest days of December. The Thames is nearly frozen at Waterloo Bridge. On the second floor of an old house in - Lane, in an unusually spacious room (or does it only look spacious because there is nothing in it save four human beings?) are a father, a mother, and a grown-up son and daughter. They scowl at the visitor as the Scripture reader opens the door. What is the meaning of the intrusion? Is he too come with a Bible instead of bread? The four are seated side by side on the floor, leaning against the wall, waiting for - death. Bedsteads, chairs, table, and looms have been burnt this week or more for fuel. The grate is empty now, and lets the freezing draught blow down the chimney. The temporary relief is accepted, but not with thanks. These four stubbornly prefer death to the work- house.

One other case. It is the same hard winter. The scene: a small garret in the roof, a low slanting little skylight, now covered six inches deep in snow. No fireplace here, no ventilation, so put your scented cambric to your nose, my noble Dives. The only furniture a scanty armful of - what shall we call it? It was straw once. A starving woman and a baby are lying on it, notwithstanding. The baby surely will not be there to-morrow. It has a very bad cold - and the mucus, and the - pah! The woman in a few rags - just a few - is gnawing a raw carrot. The picture is complete. There's nothing more to paint. The rest - the whole indeed, that is the consciousness of it - was, and remains, with the Unseen.

You will say, 'Such things cannot be'; you will say, 'There are relieving officers, whose duty, etc., etc.' May be. I am only telling you what I myself have seen. There is more goes on in big cities than even relieving officers can cope with. And who shall grapple with the causes? That's the point.

Here is something else that I have seen. I have seen a family of six in one room. Of these, four were brothers and sisters, all within, none over, their teens. There were three beds between the six. When I came upon them they were out of work, - the young ones in bed to keep warm. I took them for very young married couples. It was the Scripture reader who undeceived me. This is not the exception to the rule, look you, but the rule itself. How will you deal with it? It is with Nature, immoral Nature and her heedless instincts that you have to deal. With what kind of fork will you expel her? It is with Nature's wretched children, the BETES HUMAINES,

Quos venerem incertam rapientes more ferarum,

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