White Slaves; or, the Oppression of the Worthy PoorBanks, Louis Albert
History
White Slaves; or, the Oppression of the Worthy Poor
Banks, Louis Albert
Poor -- Massachusetts -- Boston; Sweatshops; Working class -- Massachusetts -- Boston
Her lever was the wand of art,
Her fulcrum was the human heart,
Whence all unfailing aid is;
She moved the earth, its thunders pealed,
Its mountains shook, its temples reeled,
The blood-red fountains were unsealed,
And Moloch sunk to Hades."
Mrs. Stowe, in the preface of her son's biography of herself, aptly
quotes the words of Mr. Valiant-for-Truth in the "Pilgrim's Progress:"
"My sword I give to him that shall succeed me in my pilgrimage, and my
courage and skill to him that can get it." May God grant us courage and
skill to use the memory of "Uncle Tom's Cabin" to serve the "white
slaves" of our own time and city!
To begin by quoting from Mrs. Stowe's famous story: "The cabin of Uncle
Tom was a small log building close adjoining to 'the house,' as the
negro _par excellence_ designates his master's dwelling. In front it
had a neat garden-patch where every summer strawberries, raspberries,
and a variety of fruits and vegetables flourished under careful
training." This little log house was a small and crowded dwelling-place
for Uncle Tom and his wife and little ones, yet it had several things
in its favor. In the first place it had plenty of sunshine and pure
air. It was an individual cabin, occupied by Uncle Tom's family alone.
The climate was sunshiny; and when Uncle Tom's wife, Aunt Chloe, wanted
to wash, she could build a fire out in the open air, and spread her
clothing on the fragrant raspberry-bushes, while her woolly-headed
little flock were sent scampering over the pastures and fields.
Now let us look at the Boston cabins. In the first place, there are no
individual cabins for the poor. The price of land makes that
impossible. A big Boston tenement house means from four to ten cabins
on a floor, and from three to six floors under one roof. In a great
many of these sunlight is an impossibility. Boston is peculiarly cursed
with the rear tenement. All through the North End and some parts of the
West End and "the Cove," there abound dark courts, oftentimes reached
only by a tunnel, that are almost entirely barren of the sunlight. For
instance, there is a court off North Street, reached by a tunnel such
as I have described, where the tenement houses are three deep from the
street.
[Illustration: COURT OFF NORTH STREET.]
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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