LITMIR.BIZ

      Published by Good Press, 2020

       [email protected]

      EAN 4064066061548

Table of Contents

       I

       II

       III

       IV

       V

       VI

       VII

       VIII

       IX

       X

       XI.

       XII

       XIII

       XIV

       XV

       XVI

       XVII

       XVIII

       XIX

       XX

       XXI

       XXII

       XXIII

       XXIV

       XXV

       XXVI

       XXVII

       XXVIII

       XXIX

       XXX

       XXXI

       XXXII

       XXXIII

       XXXIV

       XXXV

       XXXVI

       XXXVII

I

       Table of Contents

      It was past the mid of a summer night in the old Jago. The narrow street was all the blacker for the lurid sky; for there was a fire in a further part of Shoreditch, and the welkin was an infernal coppery glare. Below, the hot heavy air lay, a rank oppression, on the contorted forms of those who made for sleep on the pavement: and in it, and through it all, there rose from foul earth and grimed walls a close, mingled stink—the odour of the Jago.

      From where, off Shoreditch High Street, a narrow passage, set across with posts, gave menacing entrance on one end of Old Jago Street, to where the other end lost ​itself in the black beyond Jago Row; from where Jago Row began south at Meakin Street, to where it ended north at Honey Lane; there the Jago, for one hundred years the blackest pit in London, lay and festered; and half way along Old Jago Street a narrow archway gave upon Jago Court, the blackest hole in all that pit.

      A square of two hundred and fifty yards or less—that was all there was of the Jago. But in that square the human population swarmed in thousands. Old Jago Street, New Jago Street, Half Jago street lay parallel, east and west; Jago Row at one end and Edge Lane at the other lay parallel also, stretching north and south: foul ways all. What was too vile for Kate Street, Seven Dials, and Ratcliff Highway in its worst day, what was too useless, incapable and corrupt—all that teemed in the Old Jago.

      Old Jago Street lay black and close under the quivering red sky; and slinking ​forms, as of great rats, followed one another quickly between the posts in the gut by the High Street, and scattered over the Jago. For the crowd about the fire was now small, the police was there in force, and every safe pocket had been tried. Soon the incursion ceased, and the sky, flickering and brightening no longer, settled to a sullen flush. On the pavement some writhed wearily, longing for sleep; others, despairing of it, sat and lolled, and a few talked. They were not there for lack of shelter, but because in this weather repose was less unlikely in the street than within doors; and the lodgings of the few who nevertheless abode at home were marked, here and there, by the lights visible from the windows. For in this place none ever slept without a light, because of three sorts of vermin that light in some sort keeps at bay: vermin which added to existence here a terror not to be guessed by the unafflicted, who object to being told of it. ​For on them that lay writhen and gasping on the pavement; on them that sat among them; on them that rolled and blasphemed in the lighted rooms; on every moving creature in this, the Old Jago, day and night, sleeping and waking, the third plague of Egypt, and more, lay unceasing.

      The stifling air took a further oppression from the red sky. By the dark entrance to Jago Court a man arose, flinging out an oath, and sat with his head bowed in his hands.

      "Ah-h-h-h-," he said. "I wish I was

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