Possibly the greatest city of the Barbarians is not worse than the worst of some portions of a great city with us; nor should I refer emphatically to the wretchedness of London were it not for the boastful ignorance manifested by Barbarian writers and literati. These always speak of the prëeminence of English civilization—of the grand and humanizing influence of their true religion—of the wealth, the liberty, and the happiness of the people! No other tribe is so humane, so just, so brave, so wise, so free, so prosperous, so contented and happy!
In the face of these declarations, which are to be met with on all sides, London is a marvel! Nor London only, other cities are more marvellous; one wonders what the standard must be, by which is tested this boasted prëeminence. If by other Western Barbarian life, and compared to that, truly superior, then what must be the condition at large of the Western tribes?
There is a nuisance common enough with us about the streets; and in London it takes every shape. I mean street music. Besides the troops, which infest public places, startling you with a crashing outburst of noise from many brass instruments, there are mendicants, of all ages and both sexes. The halt, the blind, come singing in the most doleful manner, unaccompanied; and others making the night hideous with squeaking wind-pipes, or noisy things of some sort. After annoying you for a long time, one of these will perhaps boldly knock at your door, and demand a gratuity. Some of these creatures blacken themselves, and appear in the courts and squares singing and playing not too decently. Some poor woman, with babes in a kind of basket pushed along on wheels, will try to gain sympathy and pennies by screaming out some woful strain which nobody comprehends, and which grates upon the ear like rasping iron. Sometimes a miserable wretch, shivering with cold, will stand before the bright, warm doors of a drinking place, and sing his feeble note of woe. The most dreadful objects will be those horribly deformed, who, crooked and distorted out of human shape contrive to get along in some strange device of wagon, pushed by their own stumps of hands or feet. Generally these affect to play upon something, no matter what, and drag on an existence too wretched to think of.
But why dwell upon these lowest strata of human existence. It shows out on all hands. Among the gilded idlers of the West End, on the very porticoes of grand Temples. Luxury and pride drive, with mien unconscious of human want and woe; unconscious of "the common lot" awaiting all; almost over the very bodies of these to whom life is so deep a darkness.
London in its sparkling splendours laughs and makes merry. Within its great Parks, in the summer months, musical birds make the air melodious, and flowering shrubs, and fine trees and verdure, give beauty and rest to thousands of the poor—but not to the lowest. These slink away into the fouler haunts, or spread themselves over the green country, seeking new sources of pitiful gain! In the mid-summer the best of London looks almost cheerful; and a sky more pure, and a sun-light which, though not brilliant, is soft and warm, render life tolerable to the poor. For the rich and idle, they go out of the City and leave it, as they say, empty—for those who remain are nobodies [cham-tsi]. Yes, the millions left to toil are nothing. Still, the magnificence of the High-Caste flowers immediately upon that toiling mass—from it grows all the spreading splendour which regards it not. The glowing flame cares nothing for the black coal; nor is the money soiled which passes through the hands of despised indigence. London gay and brilliant, glows and glitters upon its dung-heap—as a luminous vapour flashes and flits over a putrescent carcass.
Perhaps one should not be too critical, nor expect other than these inconsistencies in humanity. Misery will be largely its own cause. Great populations do not herd together without shocking inequalities of condition; yet, the reflection will arise, Is not the boast of refinement and civilization too much for patience—would not humility be better? The boast means self-content—humility would mean a steady work for improvement. One sees not, nor really cares to see; the other sees and feels, and wishes to remove what gives a sense of humiliation and of pain.
Splendid London may disregard the blackness of the East End (as the poorest quarter is called), and think itself a good Christian to shun it as a place of horror; but, to my pagan wisdom, it seems indispensable to devote that money and energy to the civilization of the English Barbarians, which is now sent to "the benighted heathen." These, no doubt, have the poor and the degraded, the black spots of moral imbecility; nor would one object to any really benevolent enterprise, though not too rational. But the missionary [kan-te] spirit rises so distinctly from an ignorant self-sufficiency and blindness, a merely superstitious notion of a thing to be done as any rite or ceremony is to be done—for the good of the doer—that it is impossible to have much respect for it. Then, too, the whole thing shapes into a machine, by the working of which men are to live and get honours and places. If a truly grand benevolence moved the people, it would be impossible to overlook the Heathen at home.