Modern life has no more tragical figure than the gaunt,
hungry labourer wandering about the crowded centres of industry and
wealth, begging in vain for permission to share in that industry, and to
contribute to that wealth; asking in return not the comforts and
luxuries of civilized life, but the rough food and shelter for himself
and family, which would be practically secured to him in the rudest form
of savage society.
Occasionally one of these sensational stories breaks into the light of
day, through the public press, and shocks society at large, until it
relapses into the consoling thought that such cases are exceptional. But
those acquainted closely with the condition of our great cities know
that there are thousands of such silent tragedies being played around
us. In England the recorded deaths from starvation are vastly more
numerous than in any other country. In 1880 the number for England is
given as 101. In 1902 the number for London alone is 34. This is, of
course, no adequate measure of the facts. For every recorded case there
will be a hundred unrecorded cases where starvation is the practical
immediate cause of death. The death-rate of children in the poorer
districts of London is found to be nearly three times that which obtains
among the richer neighbourhoods. Contemporary history has no darker page
than that which records not the death-rate of children, but the
conditions of child-life in our great cities.
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