The People of the Abyss

out to see what I could see. Men and women walk the streets at night all over this great city, but I select

the cabless ladies and gentlemen. I use the word "desperate" advisedly, for these wretched, homeless ones were gambling a soaking against a bed; and most of them, I took notice, got the soaking and missed the bed. Now, to go through a stormy night with wet clothes, and, in addition, to be ill nourished and not to have tasted meat for a week or

and women and boys taking shelter in the lee of buildings from the wind and rain. Piccadilly, however, was not quite so deserted. Its pavements were brightened by well-dressed women with

The homeless folk came away from the protection of the buildings, and slouche

er she got the chance, meditating on past days, I imagine, when life was young and blood was warm. But she did not get the chance often. She was moved on by every policeman, and it required an average of six moves to send her doddering off one man's beat and on to

ndon Town, and that to-morrow you must look for work. It is necessary, therefore, that you get s

me. My eyes were wide open, so he only grunted and passed on. Ten minutes later my head was on

after, when I had given this up, I was walking with a young Londoner (who had been out to the colonies and wished he were out to th

"Let's climb over a

from me. "An' get run in fer

boy of fourteen or fifteen, a most wretched-

"and crawl into the shrubbery for a sle

's the park guardians, and the

As a stock situation it will doubtless linger in literature for a century to come, but as a cold fact it has ceased to be. Here are the doorway

the Thames. "I was down under the arches wen it was ryning its 'ardest, an' a bobby comes in an' chyses me out. But I come back, an'

, and many more, entered Green Park. It was raining again, but they were worn out with the night's walking, and they were down on the benches and asleep at o

passages, and lock them out of the parks. The evident intention of all this is to deprive them of sleep. Well and good, the powers have the power to deprive them of sleep, or of anything else for that matter; but why under the sun do they open the gates of the parks at five o'cl

t was Sunday afternoon, the sun was fitfully appearing, and the well-dressed West Enders, with their wives and progeny, were out by thousands, taking the air. It was no

in the grass, please do not think they are lazy creatures, preferring sleep to work. Know that the powe