OF SEA-ANEMOXES. 59 



CHAPTER IV. 



HOW SHALL I KEEP IT ALIVE ? 



Were you ever led, reader, by chance or by choice, 

 into one of the plague-courts of London ? I do not 

 speak of the Black Death of the fourteenth century, 

 but of that pestilence which is hardly less fatal in 

 our own times, the plague of neglected poverty, — 

 starving on mouldy crusts and fiery gin, — choking 

 in a poisoned atmosphere, — wallowing in the accu- 

 mulated filth of countless years. 



Have you ever trodden those crowded, moul- 

 dering lanes and alleys, where open sewers — 

 witches' cauldrons of festering filth — seethe and 

 welter b}^ the open doors, — nay, roll their rank 

 pollution through the very heart of the poor 

 man's home ; where vermin, unnamed and un- 

 known in civilized life, creep and writhe, and die 

 and rot, on wall and floor and roof — a moving, 

 mortifying crust of Ufe and death — the mockery 

 and bathos of the decorative art ; where the sickly 

 glare and the wearied smile of consumption ape the 

 glance and the laughter of health ; where the 



