File:East London (1901) (14753397236).jpg

Identifier: eastlondon00besa (find matches)
Title: East London
Year: 1901 (1900s)
Authors: Besant, Walter, Sir, 1836-1901
Subjects: Poor
Publisher: New York, The Century Co.
Contributing Library: The Library of Congress
Digitizing Sponsor: Sloan Foundation

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t require a bourse or exchange;they can get along without a mercantile center; they donot feel the want of a guildhall; they do not understandthat they have any bond of common interest except thenecessity of keeping order. The city sprang up so rapidly,it has spread itself in all directions so unexpectedly, it hasbecome, while men, unsuspecting, went about their dailybusiness, suddenly so vast that there has been no opportunityfor the simultaneous birth or creation of any feeling of civicpatriotism, civic brotherhood, or civic pride. The present condition of East London suggests to theantiquary, in certain respects, the ancient condition of theCity of London before the people obtained their communeand their mayor. For as the City was divided into wards,which were manors owned and ruled by aldermen, with nocentral organization, no chief or leader of the citizens, soEast London, until the changes in last years Act of Parlia-ment, consisted of parishes, vestries, boards of guardians, and
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London Street, Limehouse. WHAT EAST LONDON IS 13 other boards, with no cohesion, no central government, and,in important matters, such as fire, water, sanitation, pohce,education, law, subject to external authority. There are no newspapers, but then their newspapers arepublished in Fleet Street, only two or three miles away.But their books—where do they get their books? Thereare no book-shops. Here is a city of two millions of peo-ple, and not a single booksellers shop. True, there are oneor two second-hand book-shops; there are also a few shopswhich display, among other goods, a shelf or two of books,mostly of the goody kind—the girls Sunday-school prizeand the like. But not a single place in which the new booksof the day, the better literature, the books of which theworld is talking, are displayed and offered for sale. I donot think that publishers travelers ever think it necessaryto visit East London at all. Considering the population,I submit that this is a very remarkable omi

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