The People of the Abyss

where a fair measure of happiness reigned-sometimes whole rows of houses in little out-of-the-way streets, where artisans dwell and where a rude sort of family

great, for, relative to the wretchedness

ion. The Abyss seems to exude a stupefying atmosphere of torpor, which wraps about them and deadens them. Religion passes them by. The Unseen holds for them neither terror no

ogress, and with them not to progress is to fall back and into the Abyss. In their own lives they may only start to fall, leaving the fall to be completed by their chi

the undermining influences ceaselessly at work. Moral and physical stamina are broken, and the good workman, fresh from the soil, becomes in the first city generation a poor workman; and by the

weaken him mentally and physically, so that he becomes unable to compete with the fres

tarry hydrocarbons, are deposited every week on every quarter of a square mile in and about London. This is equivalent to twenty-four tons per week to the square mile, or 1248 tons per year to the square mile. From the cornice below the dome of St. Paul's Cathedral was recently taken a solid deposi

oes down in the brute struggle for life with the invading hordes from the country. The railway men, carriers, omnibus drivers, corn and timber porters, and all those

bellied artisans at the doors, I am aware of a greater sorrow for them than for the 450,000 lost and hopeless wretches dying at the bottom of the pit. They

Given proper conditions, it could live through the centuries, and great men,

d on the fatal fall to the bottom. Her husband was a fitter and a member of the Engineers' Union. That he was a poor engineer was evide

g on a single gas-ring in the fireplace. Not being persons of property, they were unable to obtain an unlimited supply of gas; but a clever machine had been installed for their benefit. By dropping

arisen from the table able and willing to eat more. And when once on the downward slope,

making cloth dress-skirts, lined up and with two flounces, for seven shillings a dozen. Cloth dress-skirts, mark you,

nd sixpence from him each week. Also, when strikes were afoot and he chanced to be working, he had at

en the slack season came she was discharged, though she had been taken on at such low pay with the understanding that she was to learn the trade and work up. After that she ha

ng into the pit. But what of the daughters? Living like swine, enfeebled by chronic innutrition, being sapped mental

the yard that is back to back with my yard. When the first sounds reached me I took it for the barking and snarling of dogs

ce to think of; it is far worse to l

d a child crying and a young girl's voice pleading tearfully; a woman's voice rises, harsh and

iastic spectators, and the sound of blows, and of oaths that make one's b

ror. "Awright," repeated insistently and at top pitch twenty times straight running; "you'll

d being resuscitated; child's voice audible again, but n

up the scale, som

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verwhelming advantage, and follows it up from the way the other combatant screams blood

ly broken from the way bloody murder goes up half an octave

blank, blank!" "I'd like ter see yer, blankety, blank, blank!" renewed conflict, mothers, daughters, everybody, during which my landlad