II.—Home, sweet Home!
THE day on which Ginx uttered his awful
threat was that next to the one wherein
number twelve had drawn his first breath.
His wife lay on the bed which, at the outset
of wedded life, they had purchased secondhand
in Strutton Ground for the sum of nine
shillings and sixpence. Second-hand! It had
passed through, at least, as many hands
as there were afterwards babies born upon
it. Twelfth or thirteenth hand, a vagabond,
botched bedstead, type of all the furniture
in Ginx's rooms, and in numberless
houses through the vast city. Its dimensions
were 4 feet 6 inches by 6 feet. When Ginx,
who was a stout navvy, and Mrs. Ginx, who
was, you may conceive, a matronly woman,
were in it, there was little vacant space about
them. Yet, as they were forced to find resting-places for all the children, it not seldom
happened that at least one infant was perilously
wedged between the parental bodies;
and latterly they had been so pressed for
room in the household that two younglings
were nestled at the foot of the bed. Without
foot-board or pillows, the lodgment of these
infants was precarious, since any fatuous
movement of Ginx's legs was likely to expel
them head-first. However they were safe,
for they were sure to fall on one or other of
their brothers or sisters.
I shall be as particular as a valuer, and
describe what I have seen. The family sleeping-room measured 13 feet 6 inches by 14 feet.
Opening out of this, and again on the landing
of the third-floor, was their kitchen and
sitting-room; it was not quite so large as the
other. This room contained a press, an old
chest of drawers, a wooden box once used for
navvy's tools, three chairs, a stool, and some
cooking utensils. When, therefore, one little
Ginx had curled himself up under a blanket on
the box, and three more had slipped beneath
a tattered piece of carpet under the table,
there still remained five little bodies to be
bedded. For them an old straw mattress,
limp enough to be rolled up and thrust under
the bed, was at night extended on the floor.
With this, and a patchwork quilt, the five
were left to pack themselves together as
best they could. So that, if Ginx, in some
vision of the night, happened to be angered,
and struck out his legs in navvy fashion, it
sometimes came to pass that a couple of
children tumbled upon the mass of infantile
humanity below.
Not to be described are the dinginess of
the walls, the smokiness of the ceilings, the
grimy windows, the heavy, ever-murky
atmosphere of these rooms. They were 8 feet
6 inches in height, and any curious statist
can calculate the number of cubic feet of air
which they afforded to each person.
The other side of the street was 14 feet
distant. Behind, the backs of similar tenements
came up black and cowering over the little
yard of Number Five. As rare, in the well
thus formed, was the circulation of air as that
of coin in the pockets of the inhabitants. I
have seen the yard; let me warn you, if you
are fastidious, not to enter it. Such of the
filth of the house as could not, at night, be
thrown out of the front windows, was there
collected, and seldom, if ever, removed. What
became of it? What becomes of countless
such accretions in like places? Are a large
proportion of these filthy atoms absorbed by
human creatures living and dying, instead of
being carried away by scavengers and inspectors?
The forty-five big and little lodgers in
the house were provided with a single office
in the corner of the yard. It had once been
capped by a cistern, long since rotted away—
* * * * *
The street was at one time the prey of the
gas company; at another, of the drainage
contractors. They seemed to delight in turning
up the fetid soil, cutting deep trenches
through various strata of filth, and piling up
for days or weeks matter that reeked with
vegetable and animal decay. One needs not
affirm that Rosemary Street was not so called
from its fragrance. If the Ginxes and their
neighbors preserved any semblance of health
in this place, the most popular guardian on
the board must own it a miracle. They, poor
people, knew nothing of "sanitary reform,''
"sanitary precautions,'' "zymotics,''
"endemics,'' "epidemics,'' "deodorizers,'' or
"disinfectants.'' They regarded disease with
the apathy of creatures who felt it to be
inseparable from humanity, and with the
fatalism of despair.
Gin was their cardinal prescription, not for
cure, but for oblivion: "Sold everywhere.''
A score of palaces flourished within call of each
other in that dismal district—garish, rich-looking dens, drawing to the support of their
vulgar glory the means, the lives, the eternal
destinies of the wrecked masses about them.
Veritable wreckers they who construct these
haunts, viler than the wretches who place false
beacons and plunder bodies on the beach.
Bring down the real owners of these places, and
show them their deadly work! Some of them
leading Philanthropists, eloquent at Missionary
meetings and Bible Societies, paying tribute
to the Lord out of the pockets of dying
drunkards, fighting glorious battles for slaves,
and manfully upholding popular rights. My
rich publican—forgive the pun—before you pay
tithes of mint and cummin, much more before
you claim to be a disciple of a certain Nazarene,
take a lesson from one who restored
fourfold the money he had wrung from honest
toil, or reflect on the case of the man to whom
it was said, "Go sell all thou hast, and give
to the poor.'' The lips from which that
counsel dropped offered some unpleasant
alternatives, leaving out one, however, which
nowadays may yet reach you—the contempt
of your kind.
