TALES OF MEAN STREETS LIZERUNT SQUIRE NAPPER WITHOUT VISIBLE MEANS THREE ROUNDS And Others BY ARTHUR MORRISON BOSTON ROBERTS BROTHERS 1895 _Copyright, 1895,_ BY ROBERTS BROTHERS. _All rights reserved._ University Press: JOHN WILSON AND SON, CAMBRIDGE, U.S.A. TO WILLIAM ERNEST HENLEY NOTE.--_The greater number of these stories and studies were first printed in_ The National Observer; _the introduction, in a slightly different form, in_ Macmillan's Magazine; _"That Brute Simmons" and "A Conversion" have been published in_ The Pall Mall Budget; _and "The Red Cow Group" is new._ CONTENTS. PAGE INTRODUCTION TO THE AMERICAN EDITION 9 INTRODUCTION 15 LIZERUNT:-- I. LIZER'S WOOING 29 II. LIZER'S FIRST 38 III. A CHANGE OF CIRCUMSTANCES 46 WITHOUT VISIBLE MEANS 57 TO BOW BRIDGE 73 THAT BRUTE SIMMONS 83 BEHIND THE SHADE 97 THREE ROUNDS 109 IN BUSINESS 127 THE RED COW GROUP 141 ON THE STAIRS 161 SQUIRE NAPPER 171 "A POOR STICK" 197 A CONVERSION 207 "ALL THAT MESSUAGE" 221 INTRODUCTION TO THE AMERICAN EDITION. It was considered an intrepid thing for Walter Besant to do when, twelve or thirteen years ago, he invaded the great East End of London and drew upon its unknown wealth of varied material to people that most charming novel, "All Sorts and Conditions of Men." Until then the West End knew little of its contiguous neighbor in the East. Dickens's kaleidoscopic views of low life in the South of London were manifestly caricatures of the slum specimens of human nature which he purposely sought and often distorted to suit his bizarre humor. Mr. Besant may be fairly considered as the pioneer of those who have since descended to the great unchartered region of East London, about which, so far as our knowledge of the existing conditions of human life in that community are concerned, we remained until, as it were yesterday, almost as ignorant as of the undiscovered territories in Central Africa. Contemporaneous with Mr. Besant's "discovery" of East London began the eastward march of the Salvation Army, which has since honeycombed this quarter of the metropolis with its militant camps. Gradually the barriers were thrown down, and the East has become accessible to literature and to civilization as it never had been to the various Charity and Church missionary organizations.