Long ago it was discovered that London devours her own children. This means that city families have a tendency to die out or to disappear. All the city families of importance—a very long list can be drawn up—of the twelfth and thirteenth centuries—the Bukerels, Basings, Orgars, Battes, Faringdons, Anquetils—have disappeared in the fifteenth. All the great names of the fifteenth—Whittington, Philpot, Chichele, and the rest—are gone in the sixteenth; all the great names of the sixteenth century have disappeared in the eighteenth, and we may ask in vain, “Where are those families which were leaders of the City in the beginning of the nineteenth?”
The same thing seems true of the lower levels. I cannot here inquire into the reasons; the fact remains that London demands the continual influx of new blood, whether for the higher or the lower work. At the same time, there is also the continual efflux. I should like if it were possible, but it would entail an enormous amount of work and research, to ascertain how far the descendants of the old London families, the rich merchants of the last three or four hundred years, are still to be found among our county families. There are descendants of Henry Fitz Ailwyn, first mayor of London, and there are also descendants of the Thedmars, the Brembres, the Philpots, the Walworths. Are there descendants of the Boleyns and the Greshams? Are there descendants among the county families and the nobility of those city merchants who made their “plum” in the last century, and were so much despised by the fashion of the day? Further, I should like to ascertain, if possible, how far the old London families are represented by descendants in America. It would, again, be interesting to learn how many firms of merchants still remain of those which flourished in London a hundred years ago. And it would also be interesting if we could learn, in a long-settled parish of working folk, such as Bethnal Green or Spitalfields, how many names still survive of the families who were baptized, married, and buried at the parish church in the year 1800. The last would be an investigation of great and special interest, because no one, so far, has attempted to ascertain the changes which take place in the rank and file of a London parish, and because the people themselves keep no record of their origin, and the grandchildren, as a rule, neither ask nor seek to know where their grandfathers were born; they care nothing for the rock from which they were digged.
Again I venture to borrow two or three simple figures from Mr. Booth. He tested a small colony called an “Irish” neighborhood; it consisted of 160 persons. I presume that he means 160 heads of families; of these 57 were Londoners by birth; out of London, but in the United Kingdom, 88 were born; the remaining 15 were foreigners by birth. And out of 693 applicants for relief to the Charity Organization Society in Mile End, Old Town, and St. George’s-in-the-East, 486, or seventy per cent., were Londoners by birth; 207, or thirty per cent., were born out of London.
Barge-Builders.
It may be added that if we take the whole of London it is roughly estimated that 630 in the thousand of the population are natives of London, that 307 come from other parts of England and Wales, that 13 are Scotch, 21 Irish, 8 colonists, and 21 of foreign birth. This estimate may have been slightly altered by the recent influx of Russian Jews, but the difference made by a hundred thousand or so cannot be very great. The settlements of the alien, especially in East London, will be considered in another chapter. Meantime, to one who lives in the suburbs of London—to one who considers the men of light and leading in London: its artists, men of letters, architects, physicians, lawyers, surgeons, clergy, etc.—it seems at first sight as if no one was born in London. The City merchants, however, can, I believe, point to a majority of their leaders as natives of London. It would be easy to overstate the case in this respect.
The statistics, so far as they can be arrived at, as to religion are startling. On October 24, 1886, a census was taken of church attendance. The results were as follows: Over an area including 909,000 souls there were 33,266 who attended the Church of England in the morning, and 37,410 who attended in the evening. This means 3.6 per cent. in the morning and 4.1 per cent. in the evening, so that out of every 100 persons 96 stayed away from church. Taking the nonconformist chapels, it was found that 3.7 per cent. attended some chapel, while 3.3 per cent. attended the mission halls in the evening. These mission halls, with their hearty services, the exhortations of the preacher, and the enthusiasm of the singing, are crowded. So that, taking all together, there were between seven and eight per cent. of the population who went to some religious service in the evening. This leaves about ninety-two per cent., men and women, boys and girls and infants, who did not attend any kind of worship. This does not indicate the hatred of religion which is found among Parisian workmen; it is simply indifference and not hostility, except in special cases and among certain cranks. And although he does not go to church the East Londoner is by no means loath to avail himself of everything that can be got out of the church; he will cheerfully attend at concerts and limelight shows; his wife will cheerfully get what she can at a rummage sale; and they will cheerfully send their children to as many picnics in the country, feasts, and parties as may be provided for them by the clergy of the parish. But they will not go to church. To this rule there are certain exceptions, of which I shall perhaps speak in due time.
These few notes will not, I hope, be thought out of place in a volume whose object it is to present the reader with some kind of portraiture of the people of East London, the only study in that city which is curious and interesting. I want, once more, these facts to be borne in mind. It is a new city, consisting of many old hamlets whose fields and gardens have been built upon chiefly during this century. It is a city without a center, without a municipality, and without any civic or collective or local pride, patriotism, or enthusiasm. It is a city without art or literature, but filled with the appliances of science and with working-men, some of whom have acquired a very high degree of technical skill. It is a city where all alike, with no considerable exceptions, live on the weekly wage; it is a city of whose people a large percentage were born elsewhere; and it is a city which offers, I suppose, a greater variety and a larger number of crafts and trades than any other industrial center in the world—greater even than Paris, which is the home of so many industries. And it is not a city of slums, but of respectability. Slums there are; no one can deny them; there are also slums in South London much worse in character, and slums in West London, where the “Devil’s Acre” occupies a proud preëminence in iniquity; but East London is emphatically not a city of slums.
III