"I say," he said, "wot plyce yer wanter go?"
"East End," I repeated. "Nowhere in particular. Just drive me around
anywhere."
"But wot's the haddress, sir?"
"See here!" I thundered. "Drive me down to the East End, and at once!"
It was evident that he did not understand, but he withdrew his head, and
grumblingly started his horse.
Nowhere in the streets of London may one escape the sight of abject
poverty, while five minutes' walk from almost any point will bring one to
a slum; but the region my hansom was now penetrating was one unending
slum. The streets were filled with a new and different race of people,
short of stature, and of wretched or beer-sodden appearance. We rolled
along through miles of bricks and squalor, and from each cross street and
alley flashed long vistas of bricks and misery. Here and there lurched a
drunken man or woman, and the air was obscene with sounds of jangling and
squabbling. At a market, tottery old men and women were searching in the
garbage thrown in the mud for rotten potatoes, beans, and vegetables,
while little children clustered like flies around a festering mass of
fruit, thrusting their arms to the shoulders into the liquid corruption,
and drawing forth morsels but partially decayed, which they devoured on
the spot.
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