A REJOINDER 163 



believes what she writes, which I do not doubt, that 

 an imperative duty lies upon her to undertake the 

 task, and to demonstrate the reality or falsity of her 

 'belief. 



If Miss Wodehouse will pass down a certain 

 street near a certain great railway terminus in 

 London on a Saturday evening in the Summer, until 

 she reaches another street at its other end, she will 

 be passing through a slum area. Yet in the upper 

 part of the first street (the end nearer the station) she 

 will find on either side of it, on the whole, a row 

 of clean, well-kept, neat, and orderly houses, inhabited 

 by a respectable artizan class. In the lower street 

 and its environs the people are mere animals. The 

 streets are crowded with children almost naked, 

 whose bodies and limbs are freely exposed, who are 

 swarming with vermin and infested with sores and 

 boils, solely the result of dirt ; there, too, are habitual 

 drinkers, and mothers careless in behaviour, uncouth 

 and unkempt in appearance, and unsavoury and 

 repugnant to every one of our five senses. Can 

 Miss Wodehouse tell me why these two adjacent 

 streets leading into each other are so different ? 



Who made these two environments, situated under 

 the same sun, the same government, the same rate 

 collector, served by the same school and public- 

 houses, infested by the same dust-laden atmosphere, 

 with the same examples and influences operating 

 upon both ? The answer of Biology is that it is the 

 inherent, congenital nature of the people living 

 there. The answer of the older Theology is 



