The Mysteries of the Court of London — page 93: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

THE MYSTERIES there as in the other poor neighhourhoods of London. Aye—and that ditch, so black in hue and so fetid in odour, is alike their common sewer and the source of the water which they drink: they not only inhale its sickly effluvia, but also imbibe its poisonous draughts. To say after this that it washes their clothes and cooks their food, were to add nothing more horrible— more revolting—more abominable, to the fact already mentioned—namely that it is the only water the poor wretches have to drink! We have said that the ditch is stagnant—and it is well nigh so: for although there is a means of com- munication with the Thames, yet this channel is mo- nopolised by a paper-mill, or some manufacturing establishment: and it is only now and then that the river water is allowed to replenish the waste of the black ditch. But were this ditch regularly to empty and refill itself with the ebb and flow of the Thames, it could not possibly be purified: its bed is so deep in mud and slime, that the force of a cataract, and not the languid ebb of a tidal current, would be needed to cleanse the Augean accumulation of filth. It may be readily undertood, from what we have previously stated, that the houses of Jacob’s Island are very low: none of the rooms, either on the ground-floor or the upper storey, are high enough for a tall man to stand upright. Few of them have regular staircases: a rude ladder serves in most in- stances to ascend from below. On entering at the small and narrow street-door, there is a sharp descent in the passage—thus indicating that slope towards the ditch which has already been mentioned. The inhabitants of Jacob’s Island are, as a matter of course, the poorest of the poor—the most wretched of the wretched. Misery and demoralization have made their homes in that appalling spot: pestilence and plague are ever smouldering in that hideous region. Pale, sickly, emaciated women may be seen hanging out their bits of linen and rags of clothes from the windows looking upon the ditch, or else drawing up the slimy water itself in pails or cans which they lower by means of repes from the over- hanging galleries. Famished, wan, and moping chil- dren, wasted to skeletons, and whose countenances look deadly white even through the layer of dirt and grime upon them, crawl about in various directions, displaying none of those exuberant spirits which cha racterise the children of even the poorest persons in other neighbourhoods. Disease has fastened upon their vitals from the moment of their birth: they live in a pestilential atmosphere—they drink poisoned water—and although they may grow up to be men and women, yet will they die prematurely and be laid in early graves. As for the men whom you see in Jacob’s Island—they are as miserable in appearance as their wives and their offspring ;—and on every countenance may be read the hideous influence of that mephitic vapour which, ever exhaling from the quadrangular ditch, envelopes the whole island in a plague-mist which though unseen is deeply felt. Oh! when we think that seventy thousand pounds were given a few years back to build stables and ken- nels for the horses and dogs of Royalty,—and when we reflect that a quarter of that sum would have served to sweep away the whole of Jacob’s Island, fill up the loathsome ditch, and build healthy, cheerful, fitting dwellings upon the site of present wretched- ness and abominations,—must we not wonder that no voice was raised in the legislative assembly to proclaim the infamy, the scandal, and the atrocity of 79 thus providing handsomely for horses and dogs, while so many human beings were forced by stern compul- sion and dire necessity to herd together upon that accursed spot! But what is a poor working man when the whim of Royalty is to be gratified ?—what are his pale wife and emaciated children when a Ger- man Prince demands that his hunters with which he is afraid to hunt, and his hounds with which he has not skill enough to course, should be royally housed ? O Prince Albert! we hope—sincerely hope—that in the Great Exhibition which your princely wisdom has most graciously concocted for 1851, you will not fail to have a model of Jacob’s Island placed in some conspicuous part, with three or four /iving specimens of the human beings whom a cruel social system, the pressure of class-interests, and the influence of vile legislation have doomed to pine, languish, rot, and die prematurely, in that most loathsome spot upon the face of the whole earth. But we will now resume the regular progress of our tale. The reader will be kind enough to recollect—for it is necessary that we should be particular as to dates —that the festival at Lady Wenlock’s at Kew, and the incidents of the baize chamber and the cathedral- crypt at Canterbury, all took place on the Wednes- day night. We must therefore observe that it wason this same Wednesday night, or rather at about one o’clock on the Thursday morning,—that the knife- grinder, who has already figured in our narrative, slowly threaded his way along Mill Street towards Jacob’s Island. He was as much begrimed with soot and his countenance was as completely disfigured with layers of black, as when we first introduced him to our readers: but he had not his perambulating shop with him on the present occasion. Advancing along Mill Street in the direction of the Thames, he examined the premises on the right hand side, and in a few minutes turned into a little narrow passage which went shelving down towards the black ditch. It was arched — only just high enough for a man of ordinary stature—and scarcely wide enough for two persons to proceed abreast. It was paved for only the distance of a few feet—and then a flooring of wood suddenly made the knife- grinder aware that a portion of this alley actually overhung the ditch itself. The planks creaked be- neath his feet; and on emerging from the passage, he entered upon a ricketty wooden bridge that spanned the dyke: and halting in the middle, he looked over the railings at the houses on his left hand. The moon, riding high upon the arch of heaven, shone in unclouded splendour; and its beams brought out into full relief that section of Jacob's Island which the knife-grinder now contemplated. Like black marble with a shiny surface, was the stagnant ditch; and the low-pitched houses, with their sombre overhanging galleries, seemed the very places where crime was sure to be committed when- ever opportunity might serve—while the deep bed of the dyke appeared only too readily suggestive of the means of disposing of all traces of even the dark- est, deadliest deeds. The prospect was sinister in the extreme;—and if the knife-grinder had been a well- dressed person, with a gold chain pendant to his fob, he might have reasonably experienced no small anxiety to escape with all possible speed from such a neighbourhood. But it was pretty evident that the knife-grinder was no stranger in this spot, and that he was not stand, OF THE COURT. =— | | ECORNICLOO (C SS (CO)