PREFACE
The experiences related in this volume fell to me in the summer of
1902. I went down into the under-world of London with an attitude of
mind which I may best liken to that of the explorer. I was open to be
convinced by the evidence of my eyes, rather than by the teachings of
those who had not seen, or by the words of those who had seen and gone
before. Further, I took with me certain simple criteria with which to
measure the life of the under-world. That which made for more life, for
physical and spiritual health, was good; that which made for less life,
which hurt, and dwarfed, and distorted life, was bad.
It will be readily apparent to the reader that I saw much that was bad.
Yet it must not be forgotten that the time of which I write was considered
"good times" in England. The starvation and lack of shelter I
encountered constituted a chronic condition of misery which is never
wiped out, even in the periods of greatest prosperity.
Following the summer in question came a hard winter. Great
numbers of the unemployed formed into processions, as many as a dozen
at a time, and daily marched through the streets of London crying for
bread. Mr. Justin McCarthy, writing in the month of January 1903, to the
New York Independent, briefly epitomises the situation as follows:-
"The workhouses have no space left in which to pack the starving
crowds who are craving every day and night at their doors for food and
shelter. All the charitable institutions have exhausted their means in
trying to raise supplies of food for the famishing residents of the garrets
and cellars of London lanes and alleys. The quarters of the Salvation Army
in various parts of London are nightly besieged by hosts of the
unemployed and the hungry for whom neither shelter nor the means of
sustenance can be provided."