s with them, so that the scenes of family
misery and ruin were complete.

In many of the side streets and back lanes, where there was little wheel
traffic, groups of men and women might have been seen bargaining; for
the most dilapidated and greasy articles of old clothing that could
still be worn, whilst lads and even children gambled with half-pence, or
even with marbles, as if they could not early enough learn how fully to
follow the evil courses of their elders. There were, and are still,
streets within ten minutes' walk of the Whitechapel Road where dogs and
birds were traded in, or betted on, competitions in running and singing
being often indispensable to the satisfaction of the buyers and sellers.

By the side of the road along which there was, and is, a continuous
stream of waggon and omnibus, as well as foot traffic, was a broad strip
of unpaved ground, part of it opposite that Sidney Street which a few
years ago became world-renowned as the scene of the battle of the London
Police with armed burglars. This was called the Mile End Waste, and was
utilised for all the ordinary purposes of a fair ground. The
merry-go-rounds, and shows of every description, which competed with the
unfailing Punch and Judy, and wooden swings, kept up a continuous din,
especially on Saturday nights and Sundays.

Amidst all this the vendors of the vilest songs and books, and of the
most astounding medicines, raised their voices so as to attract their
own little rings of interested listeners. There, too, men spoke upon
almost every imaginable evil theme, denouncing both God and Government
in words which one would have thought no decent workman would care to
hear. But all who have seen a fair will have some idea of the scene, if
they can only imagine all the deepest horrors of appearance and
demeanour that drunkenness and poverty, illness and rags, can crowd
together within a few hundred yards of space.

Once you can place all that fairly before your imagination you can form
some conception of the mind that could look upon it all and hunger to
find just there a battlefield for life, as well as of the faith that
could reckon upon the victory of the Gospel in such a place. We have all
read accounts of missionaries approaching some far-away island shore and
seeing the heathen dance round some cannibal feast. But such feasts
could not have been very frequent, amidst such limited populations,
whereas the ever-changing millions of London