354 THE WONDERFUL CENTURY. CHAP. xx. 



deductions of various kinds. In another room one 

 woman kept herself and a daughter of nine by working- 

 all day and earning only about 7s. Qd. a week. When 

 the work was over she was often so exhausted that she 

 threw herself on the bed too tired even to get food. 

 And for these poor people, of whom there are thou- 

 sands, there is no hope, no future, but a life of such 

 continuous labor, discomfort, and penury, as to be almost 

 unimaginable to ordinary people. 



The descriptions now given illustrate the horrible 

 gulf of extreme poverty in which more than a quarter of 

 a million of the people of London constantly live, and 

 into which, sooner or later, are precipitated almost the 

 whole of the million and a quarter who are permanently 

 living below the poverty line, and to whom illness or 

 want of work brings on absolute destitution. And we 

 must note that none of these writers, who really know 

 the people they write about, impute any considerable 

 proportion of this misery to vice or drink, but to condi- 

 tions over which the sufferers have no control; while it 

 is certain that both vice and drink are very frequently 

 the consequences of the very conditions of life they are 

 supposed to bring about. 



And for this condition of things there is absolutely no 

 suggestion of a remedy by our legislators. Better hous- 

 ing has been talked about this twenty years, but if done, 

 how would it supply work, or food, or coals, or clothing? 

 The very suggestion that better houses is the one thing 

 needed is a cruel mockery and a confession of impotence 

 and failure. 



