Miscellany: Professor Wright's Letters From England: London ...

Londox. July 17,-1844.Dcar Leavill: - As I was passing along Oxford strcct onc cvcning about 11 o'clockj for onecan hardly cali it night in London till a ler twelve, a shabby little girl lpokcd up implornigly at me, and bcgged I would givc hcr sonie 'nourishment.' lier motber, she said, was dying witli typhus fe ver, atid she liad nolhing to cat. - Would 1 olease come awd see her poor niother, &c. Though sprne weeks spent in London liad hardened my heart to such complaints, she pliod her polilion so caniestly, running along by niy sido, that I at last asked her where her mothcr was. - At No. 3, Ivy Lanc, Bloomsbury, said she. As the the distance was but half a mile, I replied 'I will go with you. and if your story pro ves true, I will be glad to do what little I can for you. Lead the "vvay, little girl, and step lightly, for it is getting late.' She did not siep lightly, but quite tne reverse. She seemed in fact quite disappointed and unwilling to go. - ï however urged her on, determined to see what she. would lead to. In a little whileshe grew quite lame and limped grievously. But as she approached Ivy Lañe, she quickened her pace, without seeming to care much whether I.fallowedor not. In .the neighborhood of St. Giles and the great brewery at the commenceraent of Totjenham Court Road, she dart. ed off from the thoroughfare into one of those wonderful 'labyr-inthian mazes of brick and mortar which discinguish London, and of which a mere native American can have no conception. The streets nay be likened' to rat-holes. They lead in all possible direciions, intersect and crook in all possibleangles and curves, as if it were the design in laying out a'space of some t.wefïty -acres, -that every stranger who should attempt to pass through .should go out whefe-hè'dame in; Or -very nêar it. The locality into which we now-eñtered, forlkeptan eyé 'on thb little gir-1 and followed close beland 'her, is a somewhatnoted rookery, and the authorities are making demolitions to open a wide street through il. Now nimbly tripping on her devious way, sometimes through rubbish and ruins, andsometimes through narrow, sepulchral archways, swarming with a sort of buried-alive populalion, some dozing in their doorways, some in little brawling, contentious groups about low alehouses, and some making lire of lath to bpil their suppers, my guide at ]ast went up a filthy alley, about Ihree feet wide, and entered at the tbird door. I entered without ceremony soon after. There was a woman on the bed with, a dilapidated quilt pnrtly over lier, but nof. onough to conceal hershoes, and a gown which did not seem to be a nightgown. The girl that led me coukl hardly havesaid a word to her tnother, I entered so closely at her heels, and vet, when I asked the woman, what was the matter,, she replied she had, the typhus fever, was extremely ill, was taken last night, &c; and she cerfninly assumed an air of considerable distress, breathing very hard, with a fearful ratlling in the ■ throat. I told her I had a little medical knowledge myself, and after fecling her pulse and examining her to.ngue vvitli a very professional air, I bade her be of good comfort, for her disease was certainly not of the typhus fever. but a rather bad cough, which would be cured by drinking a good deal of cold water, and nothing' stronger. Upon this heruarming symptoms directly. abated. Shè never drinkedany liquor- not a dropí' - :And now, mygood woman," sáid I, making as earnest an appeal to her conscience as I knew Ijow, -"you are poor. arid have a sad life ofjf, I see; but how cotild yöu instruct your cliild to le]l me liat you were dying with the typhus fevei', and ihat you had no nourishmenl in hc house, while here I sec you are nut tying, you have a plenty of potatocs on he sholf, and your other Jittle girl is boilng the pot for supper. Was not the ruth bad enough? Had you not Setter lie than tü bring up your children to speak 'alsehoods?" The poor creaturc immediately began to scold the child for telling such lies, and to deny that she instructed ïer. But the child herself was speechess, and looked quite ashamed of her nother as well as of the lie. The woman hen changed her story. Shc had had the yphus fever si. rnontlis ogo, and had nol ïad the use of her limbs since. I argued that she must have some use of her feet, or she would not have had her shoes on. But as the truth-did not seem to be n her. I did not continue to catechise ïer. Slie said she had a husband away seelung work, allhough the girl had told ne that her father was dead. After lecuritig her with some severity, and endeavoring to teach the children the wickness of telling lies, I ollcred to contributei loat oí bread to their suppcr, and the ittle girl wcnt witli me to the nearest jaker's shop to get it. I mention fifís case as one of severa] similar investigaions, which have íurned out in.ihc same way. be more horrible, than he education to falsehood, which is going on in the daik, swarming purlieus of hese grcat London breweri.es? Typhus ever and death in cellars is nothing to t. The pupils number by thousands, and they begin their lessons when they begin o speak, aye, soine before. Mothens, ánd sometimes, it is said, wonnen iliat are not the mothers, carry out liftle specchess beggars. and make them put on looks of dislress. The distress, trui}', is not all feigned - far, íar from it. The stern realily, as well as the hypocrisy of wo, often meet in the same person. John Bull, with his pockets full of money, the profits o? brewing beer, perliaps, is ralher gullible. He often believes the tale of distress, or if he does nor, doles out his ence to get rid of imppptunityj and so it ïappens in spite of the most stringent mendicity laws and the Mendicity society - there isa good deal of begging m London - enough to make one's heart ache, I am sure. Swarms of ragged children are sent out with lies in thcir mouths, like the little girl that gnided me; and if they bring home nothing, they are shockinglybeaten by their brutish parents. Often they are quite unsuccessful, and fearing to go home, lie dovn3 after midniglit, to sleep upon a stone stoop, or in the corner of some court - or perhaps, under the lordly mansion, bristling with the most frightful chevaux de frise of some nobleman, whose tens of thousands per annum flow from the nests of those ubodes of crimoand beggary 'which he never sees, and who gives bis ñve or ten guineas a year to adorn the lists of various societics to convert the heathen!' In this strange London, you may pass ranges of palaces, (routing on the most delightful parles, all so beautiful, Iovely and glorious, that you can hardly conceive that heaven will present any thing more so, and vet, witliin a stones throw back of this, you will fmd miaery, filth, squalidnCss, savageism,far beyond any thing I ever saw in the backwoods.