The People of the Abyss | Page 4

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. PIEDMONT, CALIFORNIA.
CHAPTER I--THE
DESCENT

"But you can't do it, you know," friends said, to whom I applied for
assistance in the matter of sinking myself down into the East End of
London. "You had better see the police for a guide," they added, on
second thought, painfully endeavouring to adjust themselves to the
psychological processes of a madman who had come to them with
better credentials than brains.
"But I don't want to see the police," I protested. "What I wish to do is to
go down into the East End and see things for myself. I wish to know
how those people are living there, and why they are living there, and
what they are living for. In short, I am going to live there myself."
"You don't want to LIVE down there!" everybody said, with
disapprobation writ large upon their faces. "Why, it is said there are
places where a man's life isn't worth tu'pence."
"The very places I wish to see," I broke in.
"But you can't, you know," was the unfailing rejoinder.
"Which is not what I came to see you about," I answered brusquely,
somewhat nettled by their incomprehension. "I am a stranger here, and
I want you to tell me what you know of the East End, in order that I
may have something to start on."
"But we know nothing of the East End. It is over there, somewhere."
And they waved their hands vaguely in the direction where the sun on
rare occasions may be seen to rise.

"Then I shall go to Cook's," I announced.
"Oh yes," they said, with relief. "Cook's will be sure to know."
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!
"You can't do it, you know," said the human emporium of routes and
fares at Cook's Cheapside branch. "It is so--hem--so unusual."
"Consult the police," he concluded authoritatively, when I had persisted.
"We are not accustomed to taking travellers to the East End; we receive
no call to take them there, and we know nothing whatsoever about the
place at all."
"Never mind that," I interposed, to save myself from being swept out of
the office by his flood of negations. "Here's something you can do for
me. I wish you to understand in advance what I intend doing, so that in
case of trouble you may be able to identify me."
"Ah, I see! should you be murdered, we would be in position to identify
the corpse."
He said it so cheerfully and cold-bloodedly that on the instant I saw my
stark and mutilated cadaver stretched upon a slab where cool waters
trickle ceaselessly, and him I saw bending over and sadly and patiently
identifying it as the body of the insane American who WOULD see the
East End.
"No, no," I answered; "merely to identify me in case I get into a scrape
with the 'bobbies.'" This last I said with a thrill; truly, I was gripping
hold of the vernacular.
"That," he said, "is a matter for the consideration of the Chief Office."

"It is so unprecedented, you know," he added apologetically.
The man at the Chief Office hemmed and hawed. "We make it a rule,"
he explained, "to give no information concerning our clients."
"But in this case," I urged, "it is the client who requests you to give the
information concerning himself."
Again he hemmed and hawed.
"Of course," I hastily anticipated, "I know it is unprecedented, but--"
"As I was about to remark," he went on steadily, "it is unprecedented,
and I don't think we can do anything for you."
However, I departed with the address of a detective who lived in the
East End, and took my way to the American consul-general. And here,
at last, I found a man with whom I could "do business." There was no
hemming and hawing, no lifted brows, open incredulity, or blank
amazement. In one minute I explained myself and my project, which he
accepted as a matter of course. In the second