The People of the Abyss | Page 3

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This etext was prepared from the Thomas Nelson and Sons edition by
David Price, email [email protected]

THE PEOPLE OF THE ABYSS
by Jack London

The chief priests and rulers cry:-
"O Lord and Master, not ours the guilt, We build but as our fathers built;
Behold thine images how they stand Sovereign and sole through all our
land.
"Our task is hard--with sword and flame, To hold thine earth forever
the same, And with sharp crooks of steel to keep, Still as thou leftest
them, thy sheep."
Then Christ sought out an artisan, A low-browed, stunted, haggard man,
And a motherless girl whose fingers thin Crushed from her faintly want
and sin.
These set he in the midst of them, And as they drew back their garment
hem For fear of defilement, "Lo, here," said he, "The images ye have
made of me."
JAMES RUSSELL LOWELL.

PREFACE

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