CLASS DISTINCTIONS.

[To THE EDITOR OF THE "SPECTATOR."]

SIE,—A propos of your article on "Class Distinctions amongst the Poor" (Spectator, February 22nd), I am tempted to send you the following extract from "A Twenty-five Years' Record at the East End" :—

" PRECEDENCE.

Swan Building takes the pas of Eagle Court A claim unchallenged and of old creation ; The very children squabbling at their sport Are conscious of a line of demarcation.

Precedence follows recognised degrees

Among the great with this or that shaped star on ; The Peerage differentiates with courtly ease

'Twixt Duke and Marquis, Viscount, Earl, and Baron.

The rule with cotton magnates, too, is clear,

The rich in front, the poorer on the pillion, An income of ten thousand pounds a year Gives way, of course, before a stately million.

In villa residences, too, the law Holds firm with merchant and with retail dealer ; Between a banker and a man of straw The difference of rank needs no revealer.

But here gentility is fain to halt,

And view a howling waste beyond her borders ; Precedence owns her faculties at fault To separate among the lower orders.

But still genteelness in the depths survives Gentility's unrecognised relation, The cat's-meat merchant's lady scorns the wives Of those who own a less genteel vocation.

But now arrived at last at Eagle Court, Precedence is less easy to unravel,

Why should Swan Building wear a loftier port And find its claim admitted without cavil?

For both are slums, and neither is the chief, Both are alike in numbers and dimension ; Both live upon parochial relief, And both alike receive police attention."

• St. Peter's Vicarage, Mile End.