You are finally off; you arrive at your new quarters. Before you can wink, up starts a first cousin [tw-in-ti] of him who has just stared at you, who, in his turn, seizes hold of the door-handle, and shows in every motion that he has seized you too, at least to the extent of sixpence. You step out; he touches his hair (he has no hat); you try not to see him; but impossible—the pennies must come.
But why attempt to delineate these endless methods of prey. The poor wretches who live by these miserable shifts are innumerable and everywhere. One does not begrudge the pennies, but detests the nuisance, and the debasement which it demonstrates.
London is an undesirable place of residence, unless for the rich, and to them only for a few months in the year. But it is full of objects of study to him who cares to know anything of barbaric life, or who wishes to investigate the records and literature of the Western tribes.
All great cities are much alike; it is the different aspect of human life which is the noticeable thing. Unless, on the whole, a great city exhibits humanity in a pleasing condition, it is a failure, however rich it may be. London, which was described one hundred and fifty years ago as a "Province of Houses," certainly contains an immense population bare of attractive features. No doubt much must be put down to climate and fuel. The former is foggy, cold, dark, and disheartening for the larger part of the year; and the latter, by its foul gas [ptrut] and smoke, makes the fog and cloudy air so obscure as to give an unearthly gloom. The poor feel not only the gnawing of hunger but the nipping frost, unrelieved by any smiles in earth or sky. The mud of the streets is like a nasty grease, and one walks or crosses the ways in terror of befoulment. The clothes and the face are exposed not only to this, but also to the defiling smoke which drops a steady drizzle [kri-tze] of black atoms upon everything.
Poor shivering creatures—men, women, and children—are at street crossings and other places, incessantly sweeping away so much of the mud as may enable pedestrians to pass with less weight of nastiness to boots or skirts. These, often very old, or lame, or half-starved and ragged, piteously expect a penny. I have often watched the little girl or boy, or old tottering man, and seen the hurrying passers, on and on, the stream ceaseless, yet have rarely seen a single penny given. I have sometimes put in my outside pocket some copper coins to have at hand; and when I have given to one of these sweepers, the thanking look was well worth the petty trouble; it also showed clearly that the gift was not too common. How these victims of poverty live, where they cover their misery from the wintry cold, I cannot guess. I used to notice one very old and almost imbecile who swept at a place where I crossed frequently. He would stand motionless under a thick, scrubby tree which stood just at the corner of the streets, clinging to its shelter, slight as it was, for protection from wind and rain, and barely touching his head with his finger with a bow when people passed. Occasionally, slowly, and with limbs stiff and back hardly bent to toil, grubbing across the way with his muddy broom, but never giving other sign of vitality. I missed his silent figure one day; another wretch had stepped into his heritage, [qua-ti] and stood beneath the scrubby tree—the old, silent, patient sufferer had found a pauper's grave at last.
Akin to these (indeed cousins-german) are the old creatures who sit at street corners, or by the way-sides, selling trifles, which nobody buys. Through the long, cold days, huddled into a heap, and looking like a pile of rags with a red face a-top, motionless, will one of these sit, bleering and winking with rheumy eyes at the juiceless fruit, or handful of nuts, or ancient cakes, or nasty sweets, displayed upon her little board. If by chance you happen to curiously turn your eyes upon this strange object, some start of vitality appears, but vanishes as you pass on. Who buys, who eats; what can possibly come of this strange traffic? Yet you will see these human things, day after day, sitting, one would think, despairingly, awaiting the buyers who never come. How fine a thing it would be for the idle rich, who like a new sensation, to go about the streets, accompanied by a servant, and buy of these patient crones [ko-tse] a good part of their daily store!
When I first walked about the great places of the city, I was surprised to see very many miserable men punished (as I supposed) by the Cangue. They had suspended to their necks two boards, one in front and one behind. Upon these were curious devices. Horses, women, great fires burning, ships blowing up, and the like. Perpetually walking to and fro, just to the measured distance, and never once sitting down, never once speaking, nor being spoken to, these creatures, thus accoutred, walked dismally right in the garbage of the gutters. No one, by any chance, ever noticed them, nor by any chance did they ever do other than, with slow and limping gait, keep up the march of doleful dismalness! For long I puzzled over these ragged apparitions; after many moons I found that they were merely stalking advertisements! [muun-shi].
I might give many other illustrations of life in London, differing from what is known to us. The human dregs are truly dreadful. Their haunts are indescribable. Many settle upon the oozy and slimy river bank, when the tide is out, seeking anything which perchance may have been washed up. Wading in a filth which covers the feet and befouls the whole tattered creature, this being, nicknamed mud-lark [pho-ul-sti], becomes an outcast to all decency. Others prowl about the ash-heaps, and sift and pick over any heaps of rubbish, carefully gathering from garbage, bones, rags, anything which can give the merest pittance. It must be certain that human degradation can go no deeper when to debasing and starving poverty is added drunkenness, loathsome brutality, violence, and crime.