Victorian Poverty In London

Victorian Poverty In London. . Slumming it in adverse poverty In Victorian London’s Limehouse White Chapel and Bethnal Green Dingy doss houses packed to the brim Narrow dirty streets with cobbles And loud cartwheel din . Large families sharing one room Overcrowded Cold and damp Many children to one bed Lit by candle or gas lamp . Scavenging for merge food Just to stay alive You were old and haggard if you were lucky to live By the age of forty five . Opium dens in Limehouse And brothels everywhere in the East end The street Ladies often addicted to gin Selling their bodies on the shadowy streets In desperation, although it was a sin . For those so poor who couldn’t afford gin They'd suck on a gin-soaked rag for a farthing And go hungry and starving . Some so poor to afford a doss house Paid to sleep stood up against a stretched rope Packed like sardines With little hope . Crime and murder were rife A Mucher stole from the collapsed drunk And those with no life Hanging for murder And sent overseas to colonies For pickpocketing or stealing just a loaf of bread And many before they got there Were dead . Disease was prevalent Casualties of Cholera and fever Took there toll Drinking from the same polluted tap Took many a soul . Workhouses were a way out For many poor they Could work and learn a trade Safe behind the workhouse door . The Rowntree foundation And other charitable trusts And eduction set ip to help Then a law was passed And to get the kids off the streets Eduction became a must . You could be sent to an asylum For diction epilepsy or mental state And shamed unmarried mothers Give their babies to baby farmers for so much a week Or leave them at the hospital gate Baby cages hung outside windows To save space In an overcrowded place . They call it progress today? But have we really come tath far Old diseases are on the way back 750 million children go hungry every night Across the world Crime has soared and taken flight Technology may have it’s use But not a means to an end We are too reliant and it may be our downfall And money may be short not enough to spend. . ‘’ It has been estimated at that time and conditions Then the infant mortality rate was as high as 74% dying Before the age of five. Deemed old at 45. Education was enforced, as children were often up to mischief And on the streets, antisocial behavior, and drunkenness There were public Outcries called Hue and cry, resulting in Riots. So a police force was set up to Curb this. They were known as Peelers, after their founder.’’ . Peter Dome©2020.