--Why, it is the very ogre that is eating us all up. They are
chosen by the few, they represent the few, and they make laws for the
many--and yet you don't know whether or not the people are represented!"
We were passing by the door of the Victoria Theatre; it was just half-price
time--and the beggary and rascality of London were pouring in to their low
amusement, from the neighbouring gin palaces and thieves' cellars. A herd
of ragged boys, vomiting forth slang, filth, and blasphemy, pushed past us,
compelling us to take good care of our pockets.
"Look there! look at the amusements, the training, the civilization, which
the government permits to the children of the people! These licensed pits
of darkness, traps of temptation, profligacy, and ruin, triumphantly
yawning night after night--and then tell me that the people who see their
children thus kidnapped into hell are represented by a government who
licenses such things!"
"Would a change in the franchise cure that?"
"Household suffrage mightn't--but give us the Charter, and we'll see about
it! Give us the Charter, and we'll send workmen, into parliament that shall
soon find out whether something better can't be put in the way of the ten
thousand boys and girls in London who live by theft and prostitution, than
the tender mercies of the Victoria--a pretty name! They say the Queen's
a good woman--and I don't doubt it.
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