Emagine, if yer washups can, some ten foot square o' room, With a stror-heap in one corner, and a "dip" to light the gloom; With the walls dirt-streaked with damp-lines, outside, a drunken din, And hinside, a whiff of sewer-gas in a hatmosphere of gin. Some on you carn't emagine there's sech 'orrors on the earth; But there are, you bet your buttons. Who'd select 'em for their _birth_? Not you, not me, not no one, if you asked 'em, I expect; But yer place o' birth yer see, gents' jest the thing yer _carn't_ select. If you're born where streets is narrer, and where rooms is werry small, Where you've damp sludge for a ceiling, rotting plarster for a wall; Where yer carn't eat, sleep, wash yerselves, or lay up when you're sick, Without tumbling one o'er tother, wy, yer _sinks_, gents, pooty quick. _Sinks!_ Yes, when wot yer lives in _is_ a sink, or somethink wus; With a drunkard for a mother, and some neighbour for a nuss; With the gutter for yer playground, and a 'ome from which yer shrink, Can you wonder that poor Slum-birds is give o'er to Dirt and Drink. Ah! them two D's goes together. Just you plant some orty Queen In a rookery, in her kidhood, and then tell her to keep _clean_, Wash 'er face, and mend 'er garments,--wich they're mostly sewed-up rags,-- In six months she'd be a scare-crow, 'ands like sut, and 'air all jags. Wot yer washups don't quite tumble to's the fack as like breeds like. If you would himprove Slum-dwellers, at the Slum you fust must strike. Give us small dark 'oles to dwell in, and you must be jolly green If you think folks bred in dirt like, are a-going to keep 'em clean. When the sewer-rats take to sweetening and lime-washing _their_ foul 'oles, And bright light and disinfectants are the fads of skunks and moles, Then poor souls in cellar-dwellings and in jerry-builders' dens, Will be smart as young canaries and as clean as clucking hens. NOCKY SPRIGGINGS guyed me proper, in his chuckly sorter style, With his thumb 'ooked orful hartful, and his chickaleary smile. "JIM," sez he, "wot price _your_ jabber? Do yer think the blooming blokes Cares a cuss for me and you, JIM, any more than for our mokes? "Shut yer face, you pattering josser! Dirt and Drink is good for Rents! If the Poor _wos_ clean and sober, where 'ud be their cent-per-cents? If it's Public 'Ouse 'gainst Wash 'Ouse, if it's Slumland _wersus_ Swipes, _I_ am on for booze and backy 'stead o' drains and water-pipes. "You may be _too_ jolly clean, JIM, and a precious sight _too_ light, Were's the good to scrub yer skin orf! And if when a cove gits tight, Or would give his donah wot-for on the Q.T. _wot_ a lark If there weren't no 'andy alleys, nor no corners snug and _dark_.