Author Description

This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1885 Excerpt:...in equal scale compare With the tenpence--from our labours wrung--of Marlborough's moral heir? No! 'tis not in pounds, shillings, pence, or halfpence to assess The measure of our grievance, or the price of our distress; But Vice and Crime, Disease and Want, Famine and Squalor--they, They are the foul assessment, the shameful price we pay. The outrage of all decency, morality--of life And death!--all ties of family, child, parent, husband, wife, A stigma on humanity, a satire on the creed, To pay whose very preaching we yet, and more, must bleed. While age, sex, innocence and sin, in crowd promiscuous lie Of six, sixteen, and sixty, all huddled in one sty; Birth-throe and death-throe, sick and sound, infected and impure Of brain and blood, commingled! these the rent-charge we endure. And let this be our protest, a record to remain, Of Christian England's government in Queen Victoria's reign, That handed down to aftertime the infamy may stand, Of England's degradation, while Gladstone ruled the land. But must it last for ever? No! let us talk no more, But face this issue firmly out, of ceiling, wall, and floor, Yea, fight it to the bitter end, and let the powers that be Their safety in our welfare, their fate in ours see. And when Court ladies tune their throats to chant in accents bland, "The stately homes of England, how beautiful they stand," Let their good lords bethink them--"To senatorial sway The foul back slums of England how dangerful are they." For what care they for " Songs of shirts,' the callous and the proud? Distress unheeded moans her dirge, while her's alone the shroud, But when she works a double shroud, " sewing with double stitch," And " Songs of swords " are in the air, their " tone will r...