We next visited the municipal dwellings erected by the London County Council on the site of the slums where lived Arthur Morrison's 'Child of the Jago.' While the buildings housed more people than before, it was much healthier.But the dwellings were inhabited by the better-class workmen and artisans.The slum people had simply drifted on to crowd other slums or to form new slums.
'An' now,' said the sweated one, the 'earty man who worked so fast as to dazzle one's eyes, 'I'll show you one of London's lungs.This is Spitalfields Garden.' And he mouthed the word 'garden' with scorn.
The shadow of Christ's Church falls across Spitalfields Garden, and in the shadow of Christ's Church, at three o'clock in the afternoon, I saw a sight I never wish to see again.There are no flowers in this garden, which is smaller than my own rose garden at home.Grass only grows here, and it is surrounded by sharp-spiked iron fencing, as are all the parks of London Town, so that homeless men and women may not come in at night and sleep upon it.
As we entered the garden, an old woman, between fifty and sixty, passed us, striding with sturdy intention if somewhat rickety action, with two bulky bundles, covered with sacking, slung fore and aft upon her.She was a woman tramp, a houseless soul, too independent to drag her failing carcass through the workhouse door.Like the snail, she carried her home with her.In the two sacking-covered bundles were her household goods, her wardrobe, linen, and dear feminine possessions.
We went up the narrow gravelled walk.On the benches on either side was arrayed a mass of miserable and distorted humanity, the sight of which would have impelled Dore to more diabolical flights of fancy than he ever succeeded in achieving.It was a welter of rags and filth, of all manner of loathsome skin diseases, open sores, bruises, grossness, indecency, leering monstrosities, and bestial faces.A chill, raw wind was blowing, and these creatures huddled there in their rags, sleeping for the most part, or trying to sleep.