Poverty In London

The announcement through the city papers, that this noted lecturer was to speak last Sunday morning and evening at the Unitarian churoh, was sufficient to pack that edifice to suffocation, many not even being able to enter the church at all, while a large number remained standing in the vestibule and parlors. In the forenoon she spoke on "The Ideal Life," producing a profound impression. In the evening Mrs. Chant spoke as followe : "I am here tonight to discuss the religious and philauthropic work in London ; I am here to teil you of the awful degree of poverty we have in the large cities of Bngland, and to teil you how we are endeavoring to combat it. I want to protest against that political eoonomy which says that poverty is neoessary. Poverty we always have with us ; and the great question is, What can we do to prevent it ? The cry of distress is continually ringing in our ears, until we feel like putting our finger to our ears to keep the awful sound out. "You are receiving the dregs of the poverty of Europe. Don't turn them away. Don't refuse them an asylum, a home; for oh ! they need it so much. If you could go with me to London and see the thousands walking the streets, day and night, homeless, friendlea, starving, you would not turn them back. I started out witb a friend one morning before daylight for a walk, over the Thames bridge, a favorito sleepiDg place for London's poor, and there we saw 207 men and a number of women, sleeping out in the open air, in their helplesa piteousnes, grouped together in various positions, the head of one resting on the body of another, two or three here and there huddled together for mutual comfort, and ocoasionally would be seen the poor, wan upturned face of a helpleBS starving woman. Oh, it was a picture, a study for future artists. It was an awful sight, my friends, to see 207 of our brothers and sisters out there sleeping, or walking wearily up and down, the whole night long. It was enough to break my heart. "Another night about two o'clock, accompanied by my hu5band, I was driving through the streets, and saw a young girl not more than 16 years oíd, carrying a little babe, slowly wslking up and down, alone and unattended. I went up to her and asked if she had no homo. With an oath she turned on me and demanded what business was it of mine whether nlie had or not. After some persuasión, she told me she must remain in the street till morning; that her husband had come home drunk, kicked her and her ehild out of doors, and so she must remain walking up and down till he saw fit to let her in the house again. I took her into my cab and drove to a coffee house, where for a small sum of money, I procured her some nourishment, and then bade her good bye. I could not get her to leave the drunken brute of a husband, but turning away, she said with a sigb, 'there's only one more hour to wait, then he'll let me in.' I teli you my friend?, the price of the salvation of our fellows is our eternal vigilance. It is in these awful depths of misery and crime that we find our newspaper tragedies. "If wages for men and women for the same work were alike, it would have a great tendency to deorease debauehery and crime, and to stop this awful struggle for existence. But the wages paid the working women of London are nothing. Six cents they receive for making a white, shirt, and find their own thread and need-1' les. But you say, why don't they strike? Yes, the men can Btrike and get hiyher wages, but let the poor women strike and it is taken away from them altogether, and given to others. The great curse of the sewing women is the middlemen or 'sweaters' as they are called ; and no less than 13 of them share in the profits between the sewing women and the retailer. A woman, possibly with two or three children, makes a pair of trousers requiring four hours' work, for which she is to receive two pence. She takes them to a 'sweater,' under whose contract she is working and he looks them over, and finally finds fault with the button holes ; they are not worked enough. He says 'you must be drilled - stand ihere!' She stands there hour after hour, for if she stirs she will lose her money. Think of it I She has perhaps left a Iittle babe at home, which is perchance crying from hunger. Yet stand there she must. The next day she returns and stands in the same position till she has been euffioiently 'drilled' and the 'sweater' gives her her money. "Oh, my friend8, don't grow weary of the immigrant. If you could realize how they are crushed down by the poverty of foreign lands; how they long to reach the shores of free America, you would bid them welcome. You can help them, you can comfort them. But don't go about it in a patroniísing way, for they have a right to kick you out if you do. Go about it as though you pitied them, and desired through sympatbetic kindness, to better their condition and raise them to a higher, happier level."