Of what does this population consist?
Men brutalised by drink, or rendered desperate by poverty, and in either state ready to commit a crime,—women of squalid, wasted, and miserable appearance, who, being beaten by their husbands and fathers, revenge themselves upon their children or their little brothers and sisters,—poor shopkeepers who endeavour to make up for the penury of their petty dealings by cheating their famished customers,—wretched boys and girls whose growth is stunted by suffering, whose forms are attenuated through want, and whose minds are poisoned by the scenes of vice, dissipation, and immorality which open upon them at their very birth!
What hope—what promise for the future do such beings as these hold out?
In consternation and sorrow, mingled with the most awful misgivings, do we survey the picture which we are now compelled to draw;—and our feelings are thus painful because we know this picture to be correct!
And yet we call our country "Merry England!"
Merciful Heavens! what a mockery is this name! Can England be merry while the most hideous poverty is the lot of half her population; while her workhouses are crowded with miserable beings who must for ever resign all hope or idea of again enjoying the comforts of "home;" while the streets are filled with loathsome wretches, clad in filthy rags, which barely cover them,—shivering with the cold, or fainting beneath the intolerable heat—and spurned from the doors not only of the rich, but also of the very officers appointed to relieve distress; while the poor mother, maddened with the idea of her own destitution and houseless condition, presses her famishing child to her breast which yields no milk, and then rushes in desperation to consign the innocent being to the waters of the nearest stream; while the wretched father stifles his children that he may hush for ever in their throats the cry of "Bread! bread!"—that vain and useless cry to which he cannot respond; while innocent babes and prattling infants bear upon their countenances and exhibit in their attenuated frames all the traces of the dread and agonising pangs of a constant gnawing—craving—never satisfied hunger; and while hundreds annually die around us of starvation and absolute want?
Merry England, indeed! What? is England joyous when the shop of the pawnbroker thrives royally upon the immense interest wrung from the very vitals of the poor; when the gaols, the hospitals, and the workhouses are more numerous than the churches; when the hulks are swarming with convicts pent up in frightful floating dungeons, amidst a fœtid atmosphere; when the streets throng with unfortunate girls who ask to be redeemed from an appalling traffic, but who see no avenue of escape from their loathsome calling; when the voice of starvation, the voice of crime, the voice of discontent, and the voice of barbarian ignorance echo up to Heaven, and form such a chorus as could scarcely be expected to meet the ears beyond the precincts of hell; and when seven-tenths of the entire population are wretched—oppressed—enslaved—trampled on—miserable—degraded—demoralised!
Merry England!!!
But let us continue the thread of our narrative.
Two of the thoroughfares which converge to Seven Dials, bear each the name of Earl Street.