wonder-mansions of the West End do not see these
creatures, do not dream that they exist. But they
are here, alive, very much alive in their jungle.
And woe the day, when England is fighting in her
last trench, and her able-bodied men are on the
firing-line ! For on that day they will crawl out of
their dens and lairs, and the people of the West
End will see them, as the dear soft aristocrats of
Feudal France saw them and asked one another,
"Whence came they ? " " Are they men?"

But they were not the only beasts that ranged
the menagerie. They were only here and there,
lurking in dark courts and passing like gray
shadows along the walls; but the women from
whose rotten loins they spring were everywhere.
They whined insolently, and in maudlin tones
begged me for pennies, and worse. They held
carouse in every boozing ken, slatternly, unkempt,
bleary-eyed, and tousled, leering and gibbering,
overspilling with foulness and corruption, and, gone
in debauch, sprawling across benches and bars,
unspeakably repulsive, fearful to look upon.

And there were others, strange, weird faces and
forms and twisted monstrosities that shouldered me
on every side, inconceivable types of sodden ugli
ness, the wrecks of society, the perambulating car
casses, the living deaths women, blasted by disease
and drink till their shame brought not tu pence in

[[286]]

p285 _ -chap- _ toc-1 _ p286w _ toc-2 _ +chap+ _ p287

v?