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[Page 23]
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I was conducted through the worst parts of the East End, and entered the buildings where Jack the Ripper committed his diabolical crimes. These structures take up the smallest possible space, and are constructed on the plan of a tower with steps leading up. Every few yards there is a space in the wall, not big enough to swing the proverbial cat, but it holds a bed of sorts, and in it a family sleep and live. Then there are tenements which are practically under ground in some cases the footpath has been raised, and the tenants front door is blocked by this 'improvement'. In one of these, occupying a single room, two old women lived, one seventy-six and the other eighty who got their living by selling cats meat, while opposite with only a narrow passage between a woman sold water-cress. Her one room was tidy and clean though there was little light on account of the block in front, she thanked God for her home, and I thought the illuminated text with 'God bess our Home', (the only attempt at adornment in that little hovel, with its one chair, its inadequate bed clothing, its cracked cup and saucer and broken tea pot spout), was truly pathetic.
There were sights that made my heart ache, where little children were huddled together under bundles of rags for covering, where mothers were drinking in the public houses, and little tots waiting out side on the doorstep sometimes in a rickety perambulator, but oftener in charge of an elder child. A law provides that women may not take their children into the bar, and perhaps that is something to be thankful for. But with all the admiration I had for England, with its wondrous traditions, its refinement, and its marvellous hospitality I felt that this indeed was a cancerous spot, and regret is ever present that in the country's crisis she did not attack the evil firmly, and institute prohibition. The measure of reform in limiting the hours of the liquor trade has done good, but how much better would the results have been to have abolished it altogether.
With the summer came the opportunity to accept some delightful invitations to the country and one of these took me to Meath Cottage, at Ottershaw, and it was a great delight to recall with Lord and Lady Denman, their visit to Australia.