The People of the Abyss

n you let

and elderly woman, of whose fare I was partaking in a greasy c

rance possibly not approximating the sta

did she take further interest in me till I came to pay my reckoning (fourpence), w

I 'ave nice lodgin's you'd likely tyke

m?" I inquired, ign

surprise. "I don't let rooms, not to

along a bit," I said, wi

"I can let you have a nice bed in with two hother m

o sleep with two ot

three beds in the room, an'

ch?" I

other's bin with me six-six years, sir, an' two months comin' nex' Saturday. 'E's a scene-shifter," she went on. "A steady, respectable man, never missin' a night

money right along," I

an 'e do as well hels

in one room with two other men, paying two dollars and a half per month for it, and out of his experience adjudging it to be the best he could do! And here was I, on the strength of the ten shillings in my pocket

e you been he

an' don't you think yo

nce throughout the conversation. Undoubtedly she was a busy woman. "Up at half-past five," "to bed the last thing at night," "workin' fit ter drop," thirteen years of it, and for reward, grey hairs, frowzy clothes

a look?" she questioned wistfu

to the full the deeper truth underlying that v

"Have you ever taken

cyt

couple of days, fresh air,

"A vycytion, eh? for the likes o' me? Just fancy, now!-Mind yer feet!"

olately at the muddy water. A fireman's cap was pulled down across his e

parring for a beginning. "Can y

le boat?" he countered, fixing

led to closer intimacy, so that when I brought to light all of a shilling's worth of coppers (ostensibly my all), and put

he explained. "An' the bobbies got 'm,

t on a miserable bed in a miserable den, I knew him pretty fairly for what he was. And that in one respect

s the streets and the docks. He had never learned to read, and had never felt the need for

dinarily rustle for himself. In fact, he never went home except at periods when he was unfortunate in procuring his own food. Petty pilfering and begging along

him what he lived for, he immediately answered, "Booze." A voyage to sea (for a man must live and get the wherewithal), and then the paying off and the big drunk at the end. After that,

he had finished proclaiming b

'rable when 'e come 'ome, w'ich was seldom, I grant. An' fer w'y? Becos o' mar! She didn't make 'is 'ome 'appy, that was w'y. Then, there's the other wimmen, 'ow do they treat a pore stoker with a few shillin's in 'is trouseys? A good drunk is wot 'e's got in 'is pockits, a good long drunk, an' the wim

he wife happy and smiling, and a kiss for you when she lays the table, and a kiss all round from the babies when they go to bed, and the kettle singing

ten-a missus rowin', kids squallin', no coal t' make the kettle sing, an' the kettle up the spout, that's wot I'd get. Enough t' make a bloke bloomin' well glad to be back t' sea. A missus! Wot for? T' make you mis'rable? Kids? Jest take my counsel, matey, an' don't 'a

d never known. The word "home" aroused nothing but unpleasant associations. In the low wages of his father, and of other men in the same walk in life, he found sufficient reason for branding wife a

it all as clearly as I, but it held no terrors for him. From the moment of his birth, all the forces of his environment

round, shaded by long lashes, and wide apart. And there was a laugh in them, and a fund of humour behind. The brow and general features were good, the m

strip, in gymnasium and training quarters, men of good blood and upbringing, but I have never seen one who stripped to better advantage than this young sot of two-and-

n London Town. Just as the scene-shifter was happier in making both ends meet in a room shared with two other men, than he wou

of society drive them downward till they perish. At the bottom of the Abyss they are feeble, besotted, and imbecile. If they reproduce, the life is so cheap that perforce it perishes of itself. The work of the world goes on above the

rous strong life, that not only does not renew itself, but perishes by the third generation. Competent authorities aver that

ulation of London. Which is to say that last year, and yesterday, and to-day, at this very moment, 450,000 of these creatures are dyi

-NEG

st saw her alive on the previous Monday. She lived quite alone. Mr. Francis Birch, relieving officer for the Holborn district, stated that deceased had occupied the room in question for thirty-five years. When witness was called, on the 1st, he found the old wo

ndered judgment. That an old woman of seventy-seven years of age should die of SELF-NEGLECT is the most optimistic way possible of looking at

orkers, and consequently unable to support themselves . . . They are often so degraded in intellect as to be incapable of distinguishing their right from their left hand,

eman was only one, and it took him some time to say his little say. I s