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قراءة كتاب Tales of Mean Streets
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TALES OF MEAN STREETS
LIZERUNT
SQUIRE NAPPER
WITHOUT VISIBLE MEANS
THREE ROUNDS
And Others
BY ARTHUR MORRISON
BOSTON
ROBERTS BROTHERS
1895
Copyright, 1895,
By Roberts Brothers.
——
All rights reserved.
University Press:
John Wilson and Son, Cambridge, U.S.A.
TO
WILLIAM ERNEST HENLEY
Note.—The greater number of these stories and studies were first printed in The National Observer; the introduction, in a slightly different form, in Macmillan's Magazine; "That Brute Simmons" and "A Conversion" have been published in The Pall Mall Budget; and "The Red Cow Group" is new.
CONTENTS.
| Page | ||
| Introduction to the American Edition | 9 | |
| ——— | ||
| Introduction | 15 | |
| Lizerunt:— | ||
| I. | Lizer's Wooing | 29 |
| II. | Lizer's First | 38 |
| III. | A Change of Circumstances | 46 |
| Without Visible Means | 57 | |
| To Bow Bridge | 73 | |
| That Brute Simmons | 83 | |
| Behind the Shade | 97 | |
| Three Rounds | 109 | |
| In Business | 127 | |
| The Red Cow Group | 141 | |
| On the Stairs | 161 | |
| Squire Napper | 171 | |
| "A Poor Stick" | 197 | |
| A Conversion | 207 | |
| "All that Messuage" | 221 | |
INTRODUCTION TO THE AMERICAN EDITION.
It was considered an intrepid thing for Walter Besant to do when, twelve or thirteen years ago, he invaded the great East End of London and drew upon its unknown wealth of varied material to people that most charming novel, "All Sorts and Conditions of Men." Until then the West End knew little of its contiguous neighbor in the East. Dickens's kaleidoscopic views of low life in the South of London were manifestly caricatures of the slum specimens of human nature which he purposely sought and often distorted to suit his bizarre humor. Mr. Besant may be fairly considered as the pioneer of those who have since descended to the great unchartered region of East London, about which, so far as our knowledge of the existing conditions of human life in that community are concerned, we remained until, as it were yesterday, almost as ignorant as of the undiscovered territories in Central Africa. Contemporaneous with Mr. Besant's "discovery" of East London began the eastward march of the Salvation Army, which has since honeycombed this quarter of the metropolis with its militant camps. Gradually the barriers were thrown down, and the East has become accessible to literature and to civilization as it never had been to the various Charity and Church missionary organizations.
It was as the secretary of an old Charity Trust that Mr. Arthur Morrison first made his acquaintance with East London, and by dint of several years' residence and attentive study acquired his knowledge of the East End and its myriad denizens. Right in the midst of the great square bounded by the Thames, the Lea, the City, Kingsland, and the Hackney open spaces lie the dreary "Mean Streets" which Mr. Morrison has described with uncommon power and vigor, and among which the operations of his secretaryship engaged him laboriously for years. The possibility of presenting his