第11章

His head was shapely, and so gracefully was it poised upon a perfect neck that I was not surprised by his body that night when he stripped for bed.I have seen many men strip, in gymnasium and training quarters, men of good blood and upbringing, but I have never seen one who stripped to better advantage than this young sot of two and twenty, this young god doomed to rack and ruin in four or five short years, and to pass hence without posterity to receive the splendid heritage it was his to bequeath.

It seemed sacrilege to waste such life, and yet I was forced to confess that he was right in not marrying on four pound ten in London Town.Just as the scene-shifter was happier in making both ends meet in a room shared with two other men, than he would have been had he packed a feeble family along with a couple of men into a cheaper room, and failed in making both ends meet.

And day by day I became convinced that not only is it unwise, but it is criminal for the people of the Abyss to marry.They are the stones by the builder rejected.There is no place for them in the social fabric, while all the forces of society drive them downward till they perish.At the bottom of the Abyss they are feeble, besotted, and imbecile.If they reproduce, the life is so cheap that perforce it perishes of itself.The work of the world goes on above them, and they do not care to take part in it, nor are they able.

Moreover, the work of the world does not need them.There are plenty, far fitter than they, clinging to the steep slope above, and struggling frantically to slide no more.

In short, the London Abyss is a vast shambles.Year by year, and decade after decade, rural England pours in a flood of vigorous strong life, that not only does not renew itself, but perishes by the third generation.Competent authorities aver that the London workman whose parents and grandparents were born in London is so remarkable a specimen that he is rarely found.

Mr.A.C.Pigou has said that the aged poor and the residuum which compose the 'submerged tenth,' constitute 7 and 1/2 per cent of the population of London.Which is to say that last year, and yesterday, and to-day, at this very moment, 450,000 of these creatures are dying miserably at the bottom of the social pit called 'London.' As to how they die, I shall take an instance from this morning's paper.

SELF-NEGLECT

Yesterday Dr.Wynn Westcott held an inquest at Shoreditch, respecting the death of Elizabeth Crews, aged 77 years, of 32 East Street, Holborn, who died on Wednesday last.Alice Mathieson stated that she was landlady of the house where deceased lived.Witness last saw her alive on the previous Monday.She lived quite alone.

Mr.Francis Birch, relieving officer for the Holborn district, stated that deceased had occupied the room in question for 35 years.

When witness was called, on the 1st, he found the old woman in a terrible state, and the ambulance and coachman had to be disinfected after the removal.Dr.Chase Fennell said death was due to blood-poisoning from bed-sores, due to self-neglect and filthy surroundings, and the jury returned a verdict to that effect.

The most startling thing about this little incident of a woman's death is the smug complacency with which the officials looked upon it and rendered judgment.That an old woman of seventy-seven years of age should die of SELF-NEGLECT is the most optimistic way possible of looking at it.It was the old dead woman's fault that she died, and having located the responsibility, society goes contentedly on about its own affairs.

Of the 'submerged tenth,' Mr.Pigou has said: 'Either through lack of bodily strength, or of intelligence, or of fibre, or of all three, they are inefficient or unwilling workers, and consequently unable to support themselves....They are so often degraded in intellect as to be incapable of distinguishing their right from their left hand, or of recognizing the numbers of their own houses;their bodies are feeble and without stamina, their affections are warped, and they scarcely know what family life means.'

Four hundred and fifty thousand is a whole lot of people.The young fireman was only one, and it took him some time to say his little say.I should not like to hear them all talk at once.Iwonder if God hears them?