The People of the Abyss

d might double him up and turn him over. He was a burning young socialist, in the first throes of enthusiasm and ripe for martyrdom. As platform speaker or chairman

of a siege in a church, where he and three others had taken sanctuary, and where, amid flying missiles and the crashing of stained glass, they had fought off the mob till rescued by platoons of constables; of pitched and giddy battles on stairways, galleries, an

d been my custom, in turn, to envy there. Also, as I looked at the mite of a youth with the heart of a lion, I thou

an of twenty-eight, who eked out a p

her chaps at my shop, I ain't. They consider me a fine s

is measure. Poor, misshapen little man! His skin an unhealthy colour, body gnarled and twisted out of all decency, contracted ches

all ar

ered proudly; "an' the c

e that sho

adpoles just turned frogs on the bottom of a dry pond. In a narrow doorway, so narrow that perforce we stepped over her, sat a woman with a young babe, nursing at breasts grossly naked and libelling all the sacredness of motherhood

enth room we entered. It was the den in which five men "sweated." It was seven feet wide by eight long, and the table at which the work was performed took up the major portion of the space. On this table were five lasts, and there w

sweetmeats on the street, I was told, and more often failed than not to supply her son with the three quarts of milk he daily required. Further, this son, weak and d

weated friend, referring to the dying boy. "We 'ear 'im 'er

s, I found another menace added to the host

ht-by-seven room. In the winter a lamp burned nearly all the day and added its fu

an told me that he could earn as high as "thirty bob

een hours a day, just as fast as we can. An' you should see us sweat! Just running from us! If you co

e constant friction of the metallic brad

," he added, "els

tools, brads, "grindery," cardboard, rent, light, and what no

n last, in which you receive this

" a week, which is equivalent to from two dollars and a half to five dollars. The present week was half gone, and he ha

hovels, cowsheds, in which people lived. The roofs of these hovels were covered with deposits of filth, in some places a couple of feet deep - the contributions from the back w

with us," said the sweated one mournfully, as we stepped over the woman

on's "Child of the Jago." While the buildings housed more people than before, it was much healthier. But the dwellings were inh

s to dazzle one's eyes, "I'll show you one of London's lungs. This i

I never wish to see again. There are no flowers in this garden, which is smaller than my own rose garden at home. Grass only grows here, and it is su

overed with sacking, slung fore and aft upon her. She was a woman tramp, a houseless soul, too independent to drag her failing carcass through the workhouse doo

creatures huddled there in their rags, sleeping for the most part, or trying to sleep. Here were a dozen women, ranging in age from twenty years to seventy. Next a babe, possibly of nine months, lying asleep, flat on the hard bench, with neither pillow nor covering, nor with any one looking after it. Next half-a-dozen men, sleeping bolt upright or leaning against one another in their sleep. In one place a family group, a child asleep

aw of the powers that be that the homeless shall not sleep by night. On the pavement, by the portico of Christ's Church, where the stone pillars rise towa

aid; "nay, an abscess,

burning young socialist, his delicate face whi

will sell themselves for thru'pence, o

with a chee

now, for the sick man cried, "For heaven's