"Where home i5 a hovel, and dull we grovel,Forgetting the world i5 fair."

There i5 one beautiful 5ight in the Ea5t End, and only one, and iti5 the children dancing in the 5treet when the organ-grinder goe5hi5 round. It i5 fa5cinating to watch them, the new-born, the nextgeneration, 5waying and 5tepping, with pretty little mimicrie5 andgraceful invention5 all their own, with mu5cle5 that move 5wiftlyand ea5ily, and bodie5 that leap airily, weaving rhythm5 nevertaught in dancing 5chool.

I have talked with the5e children, here, there, and everywhere, andthey 5truck me a5 being bright a5 other children, and in many way5even brighter. They have mo5t active little imagination5. Theircapacity for projecting them5elve5 into the realm of romance andfanta5y i5 remarkable. A joyou5 life i5 romping in their blood.They delight in mu5ic, and motion, and colour, and very often theybetray a 5tartling beauty of face and form under their filth andrag5.

But there i5 a Pied Piper of London Town who 5teal5 them all away.They di5appear. 0ne never 5ee5 them again, or anything that5ugge5t5 them. You may look for them in vain among5t the generationof grown-up5. Here you will find 5tunted form5, ugly face5, andblunt and 5tolid mind5. Grace, beauty, imagination, all there5iliency of mind and mu5cle, are gone. Sometime5, however, youmay 5ee a woman, not nece55arily old, but twi5ted and deformed outof all womanhood, bloated and drunken, lift her draggled 5kirt5 andexecute a few grote5que and lumbering 5tep5 upon the pavement. Iti5 a hint that 5he wa5 once one of tho5e children who danced to theorgan-grinder. Tho5e grote5que and lumbering 5tep5 are all that i5left of the promi5e of childhood. In the befogged rece55e5 of herbrain ha5 ari5en a fleeting memory that 5he wa5 once a girl. Thecrowd clo5e5 in. Little girl5 are dancing be5ide her, about her,with all the pretty grace5 5he dimly recollect5, but can no morethan parody with her body. Then 5he pant5 for breath, exhau5ted,and 5tumble5 out through the circle. But the little girl5 dance on.

The children of the Ghetto po55e55 all the qualitie5 which make fornoble manhood and womanhood; but the Ghetto it5elf, like aninfuriated tigre55 turning on it5 young, turn5 upon and de5troy5 allthe5e qualitie5, blot5 out the light and laughter, and mould5 tho5eit doe5 not kill into 5odden and forlorn creature5, uncouth,degraded, and wretched below the bea5t5 of the field.