Gin lane [graphic]

In the streets of the slum Ruins of St. Giles, Westminster, the only business are S. Gripe pawnbroker (left), Kilman Distiller (right) and the undertaker (background right). It is a scene of urban desolation with gin-crazed Londoners -- charity children, mothers and babies, trades people, cripples, etc. -- shown dead or dying, fighting, or stupefied with drink. Notably in the foreground a syphilitic mother sitting on the steps lets her child fall to its death over the railing, towards a flagon labeled "Gin Royal", as she takes a pinch of snuff; below her in the steps, an emaciated, bare-chested ballad-seller sleeps with a glass in one hand and a basket and a jug in the other; the ballad hanging from the basket is entitled 'The downfall of Mdm Gin". His dog looks down at the empty glass. On the right in a crumbling building a barber is shown hanging by his neck; below a crowd is being pushed back towards Kilman Distiller. Mid-ground a woman is being placed in a coffin, her child weeping on the ground beside the coffin. Another child is impaled on a spit and carried along by a cook with a bellows on his head. In the background is the tower of St George's Bloomsbury; in this state, the child's face has been changed so that the face is wizened and the eyes sunken