THE SOCIAL AWAKENING IN LONDON

By EOBEET a. WOODS,

HEAD OP ANDOVER HOUSE,  BOSTON,   AND  SOMETIME  RESIDENT AT  TOTNBEE HALL

The East End—The Growth of Knowledge of the Poor—Church Work—
The Salvation Army—Charity Organizations—The Social Movement
at the Universities—Edward Denison—Arnold Toynbee—Samuel A.
Barnett—Toynbee Hall—Oxford House—The University Settlements
—The People's Palace—The Kyrle Society—Socialistic Organization
—John Burns—The New Trade-Unionism—The Fabian Society—The
London Government—Mr, Charles Booth.

THEEE is a place in London — as Leadenliall Street, coming-
past the site of the East India House, runs into Aldgate—
where in a few steps one parts company with the decreasing
number of merchants and clerks, and is swept into the strange cur¬
rent of East-End humanity. One feels a sudden chill, as when
passing out of a warm breeze into another with a touch of coming
winter in it. Aldgate is still, almost as distinctly as when the wall
stood, the limit in that direction of the old City of London ; w^hile
the movement of life from the East End turns sharply to the north
there, going up through Houndsditch, the region of old clothes,
trafficked in through brokers and exchanges after the manner of
other lines of commerce.

From this point several miles eastward, from the water several
miles northward, live a million people, whose existence is very
largely taken up with a close struggle against poverty. A hundred
thousand East Londoners rise each morning with little or no assur¬
ance as to where their daily bread may come from.    Another great