The People of the Abyss. Джек Лондон

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      Published by Good Press, 2019

       [email protected]

      EAN 4057664156808

Table of Contents

       PREFACE

       CHAPTER I—THE DESCENT

       CHAPTER II—JOHNNY UPRIGHT

       CHAPTER III—MY LODGING AND SOME OTHERS

       CHAPTER IV—A MAN AND THE ABYSS

       CHAPTER V—THOSE ON THE EDGE

       CHAPTER VI—FRYING-PAN ALLEY AND A GLIMPSE OF INFERNO

       CHAPTER VII—A WINNER OF THE VICTORIA CROSS

       CHAPTER VIII—THE CARTER AND THE CARPENTER

       CHAPTER IX—THE SPIKE

       CHAPTER X—CARRYING THE BANNER

       CHAPTER XI—THE PEG

       CHAPTER XII—CORONATION DAY

       CHAPTER XIII—DAN CULLEN, DOCKER

       CHAPTER XIV—HOPS AND HOPPERS

       CHAPTER XV—THE SEA WIFE

       CHAPTER XVI—PROPERTY VERSUS PERSON

       CHAPTER XVII—INEFFICIENCY

       CHAPTER XVIII—WAGES

       CHAPTER XIX—THE GHETTO

       CHAPTER XX—COFFEE-HOUSES AND DOSS-HOUSES

       CHAPTER XXI—THE PRECARIOUSNESS OF LIFE

       CHAPTER XXII—SUICIDE

       CHAPTER XXIII—THE CHILDREN

       CHAPTER XXIV—A VISION OF THE NIGHT

       CHAPTER XXV—THE HUNGER WAIL

       CHAPTER XXVI—DRINK, TEMPERANCE, AND THRIFT

       CHAPTER XXVII—THE MANAGEMENT

       CHALLENGE

PREFACE

       Table of Contents

      The experiences related in this volume fell to me in the summer of 1902. I went down into the under-world of London with an attitude of mind which I may best liken to that of the explorer. I was open to be convinced by the evidence of my eyes, rather than by the teachings of those who had not seen, or by the words of those who had seen and gone before. Further, I took with me certain simple criteria with which to measure the life of the under-world. That which made for more life, for physical and spiritual health, was good; that which made for less life, which hurt, and dwarfed, and distorted life, was bad.

      It will be readily apparent to the reader that I saw much that was bad. Yet it must not be forgotten that the time of which I write was considered “good times” in England. The starvation and lack of shelter I encountered constituted a chronic condition of misery which is never wiped out, even in the periods of greatest prosperity.

      Following the summer in question came a hard winter. Great numbers of the unemployed formed into processions, as many as a dozen at a time, and daily marched through the streets of London crying for bread. Mr. Justin McCarthy, writing in the month of January 1903, to the New York Independent, briefly epitomises the situation as follows:-

      “The workhouses have no space left in which to pack the starving crowds who are craving every day and night at their doors for food and shelter. All the charitable institutions have exhausted their means in trying to raise supplies of food for the famishing residents of the garrets and cellars of London lanes and alleys. The quarters of the Salvation Army in various parts of London are nightly besieged by hosts of the unemployed and the hungry for whom neither shelter nor the means of sustenance can be provided.”

      It has been urged that the criticism I have passed on things as they are in England is too pessimistic. I must say, in extenuation, that of optimists I am the most optimistic. But I measure manhood less by political aggregations than by individuals. Society grows, while political machines rack to pieces and become “scrap.” For the English, so far as manhood and womanhood and health and happiness go, I see a broad and smiling future. But for a great deal of the political machinery, which at present mismanages for them, I see nothing else than the scrap heap.

      JACK LONDON.

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