The Richer, Cooler Half of London

Matthew Arnold's West London is quite a bit different from his East London in that the social realm of the east focuses more on the poverty ridden/working class side on the Industrial Revolution while the west side seems to be more consistent with the beneficial outcomes. In West, what immediately struck me as interesting was Arnold's notion of the little beggar girl only stopping to ask for money from "labouring men" while letting the rich "pass with frozen stare." This to me implies a sense of pride even among the poverty ridden people on the streets. The beggar woman only asks for money from her friends or from people who she knows has truly earned it. This could be a social commentary on the rift between the rich and poor during the Industrial Revolution. According to the footnotes, the West side of town is affluent and wealthy, which begs the question: why do the beggars beg in the wealthy side of town but ignore the ones who would give them the most money? Arnold in the second to last stanza mentions that the beggar only asks "of sharers in a common fate" inciting the idea that there in indeed some sense of pride, but more so an unspoken moral code among the beggars.