The People of the Abyss

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They looked me over with frank curiosity, as though I were some sort of a strange animal, and then ignored me utterly for the rest of my wait. Then Johnny Upright himself arrived, and I was summoned upstairs to confer with him. People of the Abyss shows how far we have come, but also the dangers of a new abyss yawning as global capitalism dumps unions and enforces zero-hour contracts, and the global arms industry’s bombs drive millions from their homes”. These words I discharged carelessly over my shoulder at a stout and elderly woman, of whose fare I was partaking in a greasy coffee- house down near the Pool and not very far from Limehouse.

In my rags and tatters I escaped the pestilence of tipping, and encountered men on a basis of equality. Nay, before the day was out I turned the tables, and said, most gratefully, “Thank you, sir,” to a gentleman whose horse I held, and who dropped a penny into my eager palm Given encouragement, this is the story he told while waiting in line at the workhouse after two nights of exposure in the streets. This dining-room, on the same floor as the kitchen, was about four feet below the level of the ground, and so dark (it was midday) that I had to wait a space for my eyes to adjust themselves to the gloom. Dirty light filtered in through a window, the top of which was on a level with a sidewalk, and in this light I found that I was able to read newspaper print.

But the sight of my ten shillings had made her keen. “I can let you have a nice bed in with two hother men,” she urged. “Good, respectable men, an’ steady.”

In short, the London Abyss is a vast shambles. Year by year, and decade after decade, rural England pours in a flood of vigorous strong life, that not only does not renew itself, but perishes by the third generation. Competent authorities aver that the London workman whose parents and grand-parents were born in London is so remarkable a specimen that he is rarely found. He spluttered unintelligibly, shook his head, and looked very miserable. “I’m a strynger ‘ere,” he managed to articulate. “An’ if yer don’t want Stepney Station, I’m blessed if I know wotcher do want.” His most famous works include The Call of the Wild and White Fang, both set in the Klondike Gold Rush, as well as the short stories, "To Build a Fire", "An Odyssey of the North", and "Love of Life". He also wrote about the South Pacific in stories such as "The Pearls of Parlay", and "The Heathen". Unlike the other works with which the name of the “American Kipling” is associated, it suggests the moderately imaginative reformer rather than the vividly imaginative novelist, but it is bitterly true. NOT A NICE BOOK – NOT NICE PEOPLE The tragedy within it is the tragedy of the poor within our gates, the horror, the sordid horror of dirt and despair, rather than the horror of, say, “The Hole in the Wall,” that flashes from the blade of a bared knife, that rises with the mist of the river, that lurks in the murk of the noisome alleys of the slums, but tragedy and horror it is none the less. AND IT’S 1903!But ‘ere, give me your ‘and,” he said, ripping open his ragged shirt. “I’m fit for the anatomist, that’s all. I’m wastin’ away, sir, actually wastin’ away for want of food. Feel my ribs an’ you’ll see.” The People of the Abyss was published in 1903 the same year as his novel Call of the Wild was serialised – bringing London international fame. London later said: “Of all my books, the one I love most is The People of the Abyss. No other work of mine contains as much of my heart.” It was this sleeping that puzzled me. Why were nine out of ten of them asleep or trying to sleep? But it was not till afterwards that I learned. IT IS A LAW OF THE POWERS THAT BE THAT THE HOMELESS SHALL NOT SLEEP BY NIGHT. On the pavement, by the portico of Christ’s Church, where the stone pillars rise toward the sky in a stately row, were whole rows of men lying asleep or drowsing, and all too deep sunk in torpor to rouse or be made curious by our intrusion.

We are unsurprised when London ventures that ‘The cases of out of works killing their wives and babies is not an uncommon happening’ (123) because this ‘chronic condition of misery’ is never wiped out, even in periods of greatest prosperity.No fear. Salt’s what you’ll get, an’ I’ve seen some places where you’d not get any spoon. ‘Old ‘er up an’ let ‘er run down, that’s ‘ow they do it.” The hansom pursued an aimless way for several minutes, then came to a puzzled stop. The aperture above my head was uncovered, and the cabman peered down perplexedly at me. Then there are occupational illnesses to which women, as well as men, are regularly exposed such as ‘wet feet and wet clothes’ in the linen industry causing bronchitis, pneumonia and rheumatism. There is potter’s dust that settles over years on the lungs and reduces breathing till death, or steel dust, stone dust, clay dust, alkali dust, fluff dust and fibre dust that kills ‘like machine guns’ (195). The book humanises those lost like Harriet A. Walker:

Would I kindly step in?–no, the lady did not ask me, though I fished for an invitation by stating that I would go down to the corner and wait in a public-house. And down to the corner I went, but, it being church time, the “pub” was closed. A miserable drizzle was falling, and, in lieu of better, I took a seat on a neighbourly doorstep and waited. But O Cook, O Thomas Cook & Son, path-finders 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!

My Book Notes

It was evident that he did not understand, but he withdrew his head, and grumblingly started his horse. It being plain that as a poor young man with a family I could rent no houses at all in this most undesirable region, I next looked for rooms, unfurnished rooms, in which I could store my wife and babies and chattels. There were not many, but I found them, usually in the singular, for one appears to be considered sufficient for a poor man’s family in which to cook and eat and sleep. When I asked for two rooms, the sublettees looked at me very much in the manner, I imagine, that a certain personage looked at Oliver Twist when he asked for more. Reviewing the book for the Daily Express, journalist and editor Bertram Fletcher Robinson wrote that it would be "difficult to find a more depressing volume". [5] Phraseology [ edit ] Stronger forces are at work than Mr. London seems to realise in producing the present deplorable condition of affairs, and not the least of them is the disinclination of a great part of mankind to work any more than it is compelled to – a factor which must be given a foremost place in the calculations of anyone who sets out to reorganise society. IT WILL OPEN PEOPLE’S EYES