Down Below
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DOWN BELOW.
The surface of society is seemingly gay and happy. The bubbles rise to the brim and sparkle with prismatic hues and swim gaily with the tide, but the dregs below, black and noisome and dangerous, are left unthought of, uncared for.
Who of the thousands of the gay upper circles who are flitting to the watering places on their usual summer round of fashion and folly think of the elements of woe and crime that are festering beneath their feet! Who of the pseudo-philanthropists whose eyes are intent on Africa and who solicit with smooth-tongued sweetness alms for the South Sea Island Mission, or a donation for the founding of an asylum for superannuated lap dogs, even think of or care for the gaunt physical want and heathenish spiritual ignorance that make the city’s stews and purlieus hideous? Who among the loud-mouthed “lady” reformers at Rutland, the other day, ever suggested any practical plan of relief for those of their own sisterhood, who are toiling out life and blood and brain for the miserable pittance which the cupidity of men grants the poor seamstress? Whoever cares to reflect upon the fact that while the Tract Society counts its contributions by millions, the Magdalen Asylum1 is left with half-a-dozen inmates for lack of means, the News Boys’ Home2 in pretty much the same condition, and every enterprise that has some real, substantial, practical good for its basis, may be placed in the same category?
Nobody knows and nobody cares about these things. The impudent, the pretending, the tinselled and the superficial—these claim the great world’s attention and admiration. Nobody wishes to look deeper—it is unpleasant and inconvenient. It is not pleasant to grope among the muck and the slime. Cover it up! Do you say that pestilence will arise? Never mind—cover it up—never look “down below.”