The Bitter Cry of Outcast London: An Inquiry into the Condition of the Abject PoorMearns, Andrew
Religion
The Bitter Cry of Outcast London: An Inquiry into the Condition of the Abject Poor
Mearns, Andrew
Poor -- England -- London
Two cautions it is important to bear in mind. First, the information
given _does not refer to selected cases_. It simply reveals a state of
things which is found in house after house, court after court, street
after street. Secondly, there _has been absolutely no exaggeration_. It
is a plain recital of plain facts. Indeed, no respectable printer would
print, and certainly no decent family would admit even the driest
statement of the horrors and infamies discovered in one brief visitation
from house to house. _So far from making the worst of our facts for the
purpose of appealing to emotion, we have been compelled to tone down
everything, and wholly to omit what most needs to be known, or the ears
and eyes of our readers would have been insufferably outraged._ Yet even
this qualified narration must be to every Christian heart a loud and
bitter cry, appealing for the help which it is the supreme mission of
the Church to supply. It should be further stated that our
investigations were made in the summer. The condition of the poor during
the winter months must be very much worse.
NON-ATTENDANCE AT WORSHIP.
It is perhaps scarcely necessary to say of the hundreds of thousands who
compose the class referred to, that very few attend any place of
worship. It is a very tame thing to say, and a very little thing
compared with what must follow, but it is needful to a proper statement
of our case. Before going to the lower depths, where our investigations
were principally carried on, we find in the neighbourhood of Old Ford,
in 147 consecutive houses, inhabited for the most part by the
respectable working class, 212 families, 118 of which never, under any
circumstances, attend a place of worship. Out of 2290 persons living in
consecutive houses at Bow-Common, only 88 adults and 47 children ever
attend, and as 64 of these are connected with one Mission Hall, only 24
out of the entire number worship elsewhere. One street off Leicester
Square contains 246 families, and only 12 of these are ever represented
at the house of God. In another street in Pentonville, out of 100
families only 12 persons attend any sanctuary, whilst the number of
attendants in one district of St. George's-in-the-East is 39 persons
out of 4235. Often the numbers given of those who do attend include such
as only go once or twice a year, at some charity distribution, so that
our figures are more favourable than the actual facts. Constantly we
come across persons who have never been to church or chapel for 20
years, 28 years, more than 30 years; and some persons as old as 64 never
remember having been in a place of worship at all. Indeed, with the
exception of a very small proportion, the idea of going has never dawned
upon these people. And who can wonder? Think of
THE CONDITION IN WHICH THEY LIVE.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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