The Descent.
Christ look upon us in this city, And keep our sympathy and pity Fresh, and our faces heavenward, Lest we grow hard.
-THOMAS ASHE.
'BUT YOU CAN'T DO IT, you know,' friends said, to whom I applied for assistance in the matter of sinking myself down into the East End of London.'You had better see the police for a guide,' they added, on second thought, painfully endeavoring to adjust themselves to the psychological processes of a madman who had come to them with better credentials than brains.
'But I don't want to see the police,' I protested.'What I wish to do, is to go down into the East End and see things for myself.Iwish to know how those people are living there, and why they are living there, and what they are living for.In short, I am going to live there myself.'
'You don't want to live down there!' everybody said, with disapprobation writ large upon their faces.'Why, it is said there places where a man's life isn't worth tu'pence.'
'The very places I wish to see,' I broke in.
'But you can't, you know,' was the unfailing rejoinder.
'Which is not what I came to see you about,' I answered brusquely, somewhat nettled by their incomprehension.'I am a stranger here, and I want you to tell me what you know of the East End, in order that I may have something to start on.'
'But we know nothing of the East End.It is over there, somewhere.' And they waved their hands vaguely in the direction where the sun on rare occasions may be seen to rise.
'Then I shall go to Cook's,' I announced.
'Oh, yes,' they said, with relief.'Cook's will be sure to know.'
But O Cook, O Thomas Cook & Son, pathfinders and trail-clearers, living sign-posts to all the world and bestowers of first aid to bewildered travellers- unhesitatingly and instantly, with ease and celerity, could you send me to Darkest Africa or Innermost Thibet, but to the East End of London, barely a stone's throw distant from Ludgate Circus, you know not the way!