The Wilds of London (Illustrated) E-Book

James Greenwood

• Herausgeber: Bauer Books
• Kategorie: Poesie und Drama
• Sprache: Englisch

Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2025

Beschreibung

The prefatory remarks to the present volume need be but few. It is
not claimed for it that in the strict sense of the term it is new. The
material of which it is mainly composed has already seen service in
the “serried columns” of certain daily newspapers, but, with all
respect for the reader’s superior judgment, I would submit that it is
not worn-out material, and that remade-up in the handier form of
book shape, it may, perhaps, “ serve a turn, both as regards
entertainment and usefulness. As one whose delight it is to do his
humble endeavour towards exposing and extirpating social abuses,
and those hole-and-corner evils which afflict society, I cannot but be
painfully aware of the many chances of success which are lost to the
newspaper correspondent through his inability to hold public
attention sufficiently long to any particular subject to secure for it
that amount of consideration which it may deserve.

Leseprobe

James

The Wilds of London (Illustrated Edition)

UUID: baa9389e-bc05-11e8-900c-17532927e555

This ebook was created with StreetLib Writehttp://write.streetlib.com

Table of contents

PREFACE.

THE prefatory remarks to the present volume need be but few. It is not claimed for it that in the strict sense of the term it is new. The material of which it is mainly composed has already seen service in the “serried columns” of certain daily newspapers, but, with all respect for the reader’s superior judgment, I would submit that it is not worn-out material, and that remade-up in the handier form of book shape, it may, perhaps, “ serve a turn, both as regards entertainment and usefulness. As one whose delight it is to do his humble endeavour towards exposing and extirpating social abuses, and those hole-and-corner evils which afflict society, I cannot but be painfully aware of the many chances of success which are lost to the newspaper correspondent through his inability to hold public attention sufficiently long to any particular subject to secure for it that amount of consideration which it may deserve. There is hardly anything more stale than “ yesterday’s paper.” It passes away almost as absolutely as yesterday itself; it is eclipsed by the teeming broadsheet of to-day, and is no better than bygone; and so the ill which was aimed at, and which for a brief space was dragged to light, slinks back to its old lurking place, a little hurt, perhaps, but strong still to lick its wounds and sharpen its claws for fresh mischief. This is repeated with such lamentable frequency that, after all, it may be said that for the greater part the matter herein contained is “as good as new, inasmuch as it exactly represents a condition of affairs still existing. It is only by perseveringly and persistently proclaiming the existence of evils that one may hope to rouse those who hold the power to apply proper remedies, and it is not without hope of assisting this desirable end that the papers herein collected under the title of the “Wilds of London, are now added to the somewhat numerous list of kindred volumes I have from time to time been encouraged to set before an indulgent public.

JAMES GREENWOOD. UPPER HOLLOWAY, August, 1874.

A VISIT TO “TIGER BAY.”

Everybody addicted to the perusal of police reports, as faithfully chronicled by the daily press, has read of Tiger Bay, and of the horrors perpetrated there-of unwary mariners betrayed to that craggy and hideous shore by means of false beacons, and mercilessly wrecked and stripped and plundered - of the sanguinary fights of white men and plug-lipped Malays and ear-ringed Africans, with the tigresses who swarm in the “Bay,” giving it a name. “God bless my soul!” remarks the sitting magistrate, as evidence of a savage assault in the shape of an ear snapped off a human head by human teeth, and decently wrapped in a cool cabbage-leaf; is exposed to his gaze,. along with a double-handful of towzled female hair, tendered on behalf of the defendant as proof of provocation “God bless my soul! it must be a very shocking neighbourhood?” “It is, indeed, sir,” replied Mr. Inspector; “at times it is unsafe for our men to perambulate it except in gangs of three. “A private individual, however, suitably attired, and of modest mien, may safely venture where a policeman dare not show his head; so, being curious to become an eyewitness of what the terrible “Bay” was like, I turned into Ratcliffe Highway at eight o’clock one Monday evening.

The earlier part of my exploration was disappointing. In the first place it was so densely foggy that the names affixed at the street corners could not be made out; and in the second, not even the policeman on his beat could inform me where Tiger Bay was. Under the circumstances, it was a ticklish inquiry to make of the police, but the member of the force to whom I addressed myself; as good luck willed, was a very civil fellow, and not disinclined to conversation.

“There ain’t no place of that name hereabout,” said he, “you must ha’ been misdirected.”

“I think you must forget, policeman,” I replied. “ Unless the newspapers are wrong-which is hardly likely - Tiger Bay is a tolerably well-known place in this district.” “Pish the newspapers!” returned Mr. Policeman in tones of such profound contempt as naturally grated harshly on my sensibilities, “what’s the newspapers ? There’s a precious lot appears in ‘em that never appears out of ‘em. Because they call places out of their names it doesn’t follow that I’m to encourage ‘em.”

“But can you direct me to the neighbourhood the newspapers have spoken of as Tiger Bay?” I mildly insinuated, “the locality where sailors are so shamefully used by ruffianly men and women.”

“Oh! if she-tigers make Tiger Bays, you haven’t got far to travel,” replied the Policeman, yielding slightly ; “that’s one” (pointing to a black and narrow avenue on the opposite side of the way), “ and two turnins higher up there’s another. Brunswick Street is another. Brunswick Gardens is a goodish bit further up-little prayer-meeting place at the corner of it. P’raps that’s the Tiger Bay you want. I’d rather you want it than me. They’d have the hair off a man’s head if they could get a penny a pound for it. About one in the morning or a little after is the time for a fellow to take a walk through Brunswick Street.”* (* Since this paper was written, Brunswick Street has been swept away by railway improvements.)

“Why one in the morning, policeman ?” “Because they’ve hooked their fish and carried it home by that time, and the public houses being shut up, are as drunk as they are likely to be for that night, That’s when the hello begins, not before; when they’ve choused the flats of every rap they’ve got about ‘em, and would rather have their room than their company. Why, you might walk through David’s Lane, or Palmer’s Folly, or White Hart Street this time o’ night with a dimond pin in your shirt, as the saying is, and not so much as get it once snatched at. The tigers, as you call em, are all out hunting.”

I expressed my sense of the obligation Mr. Policeman had conferred on me in terms that not only touched his heart but moved the forefinger of his right hand as high as the peak of his helmet, and then ventured further to inquire as to the favourite hunting grounds of the she-tigers. He was good enough to specify several. “There’s the Globe and Pigeons,” said he, “and the Gunboat, and the Malt Shovel, and the White Swan. However, if you want to find the last mentioned you mustn’t ask after it by the name I’ve give it, which is the proper name you must ask after it as Paddy’s Goose ; that’s what they call it in these parts.”

I took leave of my friend, and walked up the Highway not a little perplexed as to what was to be done. I had come on purpose to view Tiger Bay - to witness what the constable graphically described as the “hello” when at its fullest blast. That, however, could not be; it was not yet nine o’clock, and the “hello” did not commence until one. Besides, I was bound to confess to my dissatisfied self that I had been a little out in my calculations as to the nature of the said “hello.”Ihad imagined Tiger Bay to be a region of public, and not private houses-a place where an unobtrusive individual might spend an hour or so taking mental notes, nobody troubling his head about the matter; now, however, I had learned that it was a mere stronghold of dens to which were carried for picking and plucking the game after it had been run down and tethered, and I did not see my way quite so clearly. And in this unsettled condition of mind I went along, when suddenly the enlivening strains of music greeted my ear, and, looking towards the spot from whence it proceeded, beheld the “Globe and Pigeons” inscribed on a lamp. This was one of the camps of the “hunters “ Mr. Policeman had mentioned.

Without further reflection on the matter, I crossed over, and, pushing open the swinging door, found myself in view of a clingy bar (still adorned with the garlands and mistletoe of Christmas), before which an old tigress, aged about sixty, and two young ones (one quite a cub-you could see, when she opened her mouth to swear, that her baby teeth were yet serrated and ungrown) were drinking gin. A mariner had “ stood “ the gin, and there leant against the counter with his face on his folded arms, his cap on the back of his head, and his favourite fore-lock dabbling in the glass of liquor that had been generously allotted him out of the half-pint he had paid for. I don’t know whether he was crying, but he spoke as though he was, and with gin in his heart, gin in his head, gin in his hair, he was murmuring complaints against the eldest cub of the two on the score of her infidelity. The young tigress was for growling and showing her claws, but the gray old one wagged her head against any such premature proceeding, and poured out the cub some more gin, doubtless to assist her in bearing up against the mariner’s unjust aspersions.

Passing this party, I spied a passage, and across the end of it hanging curtains of dirty chintz, through the chinks of which shone the glare of gas beyond ; likewise there was to be heard the scraping of feet against the floor, and the twanging of a harp, and the shrill piping of a cornopean. No one hindering me or requiring to know where I was going, I approached the calico barrier to the realms of bliss, raised it, and entered.

If the spectacle revealed was not enchanting, it was at least highly curious. It was like being “behind the scenes “ at a theatre during the pantomime season. A barn-like, long, narrow building with whitewashed walls, on which in flaming colours were a series of hideous pictures illustrative of the domestic habits and customs of the Chinese. There was a big fire-grate in the place, with a broad mantelpiece, on which reposed short pipes and splints, and a quart pot with beer in it, and with one of her naked arms resting lovingly against the pot, and a foot on the fender, stood the most magnificent female it was ever my lot to behold. Her hair was economized in its ornamentation of her fair head by a coronet of green leaves anti pearls, and her maiden blushes were modestly screened from public gaze by a substantial coating of some ruddy pigment; her bodice was low, as were not her skirts, and she wore scarlet shoes with brass heels. Yet for all these fairy-like attributes she was not proud, for with his foot on the fender, and his elbow on the shelf; and a particularly short and dirty pipe in his mouth, stood a dirty-faced, unpleasant-looking person (the potman of the establishment), and she was talking quite familiarly with him.

The dance was just finished as I entered, and the mob, composed of tigresses and mariners (sailors of colliers as far as I could make out), mingled freely and partook of each other’s beer. As for me, I took a seat in a corner, but had scarcely settled myself when up came a second fairy, the facsimile of the first, but shorter and somewhat thicker, and said she to me,

“Did you say bacca?” “I did not say bacca, miss; what made you suppose that I did ?” I replied. “Cause I’ve got it - screws and arf ounces, as well; an’ cigars; and if you wants any you may as well have it of me.”

And as she spoke she revealed a tumbler with the goods she mentioned in it. I did say, “bacca” now, seeing that she had rather I would, and I gave her twopence for “arf a ounce” of it.

Discovering this second one, I looked about me for other fairies, but no more were discoverable. These were the only two, and they were the regularly engaged “dancing girls” of the establishment. This was evident, for on the musician stamping with his foot to notify that he was ready when his customers were, and no one being in a hurry to respond, the potman before mentioned called out to one of the fairies, “D’ye hear, Loo? Keep the game alive;” on which Loo seized on a mariner and danced him to the middle of the barn.

Her sister was likewise adjured by the authority before mentioned to keep the “pot bilin’, “ and though she still held the glass with the screws and arf ounces in it, and somebody had presented her with a ham sandwich, which occupied her other hand, she responded to the call with alacrity, tripping it before her partner, and supping on the bread and bacon the while. As for the tigresses assembled (a poor lot, by the way, and looking very shabby contrasted with the fairies), they didn’t care a fig for dancing, preferring to purr and paw their victims to good humour at their ease; but the victims had come there to dance, and dance they would, so the tigresses were compelled to rise on their able legs, and stump through a polka or two with them.

Having my misgivings whether the Globe and Pigeons hunting ground was a fair representation of its kind, I by-and-by finished my beer, and slipped out. As I passed the bar I heard one mariner whisper to another that he had “had enough of this,” and was going up to the Gunboat, so, keeping in his wake, I presently found myself at the hunting ground so named.

Along a passage exactly similar to that pertaining to the Globe and Pigeons (screened by exactly similar curtains), and except that it was somewhat larger, and had a sort of raised platform at the end, I found myself in an exactly similar barn, just as dirty as to its walls, and bespattered with saliva as to its floor, just as uncomfortable in every possible respect, and as suggestive of the wonder how it could prove attractive to any class of men possessed of the least degree of sense or decency. Here the tigresses assembled in greater numbers than at the Globe and Pigeons, and were of a different class, being better dressed, and ten times bolder and more foul-mouthed. From what stock they originally sprang is a mystery. It seems that they must have been from one and the same. Take fifty of them, and, setting aside trifling variations as regards complexion and colour of hair anti eyes, they would pass as children of the same parents. The same short, bull-like throats, the same high cheek-bones and deepset eyes, the same low retreating foreheads and straight wide mouths, and capacious nostrils, the same tremendous muscular development stamps one and all.

The sailors, too, were different from those met at the Globe and Pigeons, being, as could easily be seen, men in the merchant service. I am glad that I could make out no man-o-war’ s men amongst them, since truth compels me to declare that a more spoony or weakminded crew it was never my misfortune to fall in with. There was not a spark of dash or devil-may-care hilarity amongst them. There they sat (when they were not engaged in mooning through a dance), swilling beer, and gin, and rum, and shelling out their hard-earned money like melancholy idiots as frequently as the muscular tigresses chose to demand it of them, and submitting to abuse and insolence, and not unfrequently slaps on the face, tamely as henpecked husbands. Matters in this respect must have sadly altered since Mr. Dibdin lived and wrote. Once upon a time, as we have reason to believe, there was truth in the maritime stave in which occur the lines-

“If we’ve peril on the seas, my boys, We’ve pleasure on the shore.”

Pleasure! Perilous indeed must be the ordinary occupation of the man who can find delight and relaxation in being bullied and contemptuously treated by a brawny-armed, big-knuckled, wretch, whose breath is pestilence and her language poison. Where amongst all these petticoated creatures was to be met the kind-hearted “Molly,” who studied to an atom of sugar the flavour of her Thomas’s grog, and was so sedulous as to the spotlessness of his unmentionables? It is scarcely saying too much that not one woman in ten getting drunk at that Wapping Gunboat would have scrupled to doctor her Thomas’s grog with a dose of laudanumn, while her only care as to the clean or dirty condition of the before-mentioned unmentionables would be the difference it would make in the price they would fetch at the “ Dolly Shop,” after she had stolen them from him. She is an arrant thief, the modern Molly of Wapping, as it was my painful lot to witness in the same Gunboat dancing-room. There was a young man there, not a common sailor I should judge from the cut of his clothes, and, being a fool like the rest, he went on melting his money in a rum measure until he came to the last of it. But he was youthful and gallant. So when a siren, with an arm which, delivered straight from the shoulder, might have floored a prize-fighter, tweaked him imperiously by his budding beard, and demanded “another jorum,” he told her that he hadn’t another shot in the locker, but she might take his jacket, and sell it if she liked. “If I like!”replied the tigress, with a laugh louder than the dance music ; “ why, I’d sell your life if I had the chance.” So he took off his heavy pilot jacket, and while her companions yelled at the fun, she ran off; and in less than two minutes re-turned without the jacket, and with what might have been a shilling’s worth of rum and water. that this was all the poor young man got for his property I am certain, for presently he made the unwelcome discovery that he had run out of tobacco. “ Damme, Eva (Heaver, it should have been) I’ve got no baccy !” “Thenyou’re lucky in havin’ a wesket as is as good as money,” responded the gentle Eva, and instantly acting on the hint the gallant young fellow divested himself of this article of apparel, as well as the other (I was glad to perceive that he wore a coloured woollen shirt beneath), and, stepping fleetly off with it, his sweetheart promptly returned with half an ounce of tobacco as its equivalent. There was an old tigress of the Jewish persuasion who witnessed this little stroke of business, and even she called “shame ;” but on being threatened with a “ oner in the mouth “ if she did not confine her attention to her own affairs, she prudently had no more to say about it.

I may as well mention that the amusements provided at this establishment differed materially from that offered at the Globe and Pigeons. Besides dancing, at the Gunboat there was clog-hornpiping and comic singing. For some time I had noticed a wretched-looking little boy with a monstrously big head, attired in a tight-fitting dress of some light-coloured material and with wooden shoes on his feet. He crept chose to the fire, looking very unhappy and sleepy anti surly, and I very much pitied the child (he could not have been more than eight years old) and wished it had been in my power to send him to bed, as a poor little drudge who had been hard at it all day cleaning pots and kettles and running about with beer. But lo! he presently turned out to be one of the “talented company.” “Master Whatyercallem will oblige with a clog dance,” cried the landlord (who was likewise M.C. and evidently on the best terms with the tigresses), and at once the young gentleman, whose name I couldn’t catch, shuffled to the platform end of the room and commenced wearily footing it to the soul-stirring music emitted from the piano. “Chuck it out, Bill! chuck it out,” the M.C. called in a sharp reproving tone, and Bill “chucked it out” spitefully, as though it was his malicious design to split his clogs and put his proprietor to the expense of buying him a new pair. However, he made a tremendous clatter, and appeared to give general satisfaction.

The comic singing was performed by the waiter, a poor object in shabby black, lame of a leg, and with a wen on his forehead. “Mr. Sidney Barry will be the next entertainment” was announced, and, limping to the stage and hunting out an old white hat from amongst some lumber that happened to be there, Mr. Barry put it on, and with a stick in his hand proceeded to make an entertainment of himself. His song was an Irish song entitled “Paddy don’t care,” and its success with the audience seemed to depend entirely on the singer’s ability to deliver himself of a roaring devil-may-care laugh and dealing a terrific whack to the floor boards at the close of each verse. The waiter had no voice for singing, but long practice had made his drunken laugh perfection itself, and he was tolerably strong in the arm, so that the applause was universal, and quite a brisk shower of copper money fell on the platform as the reward of his exertions.

Quitting the Gunboat, I discovered and looked in at the other hunting grounds Mr. Policeman had mentioned, but in the main they were all alike. There was the spoony sailor, and there was the tigress of the Bay. At some of the larger houses, such as Paddy’s Goose, anti the Angel and Crown, and the Sailors’ Saloon, her coat was sleeker and glossier-she sported amber and satin and blue and ermine (very favourite with the well-to-do, middle-aged, and corpulent tigresses), but she was still the same heartless, cold-blooded animal, with a mouth brimming with blasphemy, and claws concealed beneath her dainty kid glove ready for rending and pillage. I don’t see what is to be done with her, but decidedly she is a person to be put down - or at least checked in her depredations on the kind-hearted donkey in the blue-jacket, who, knowing woman in no other shape (for your tigress in brown serge or blue satin infests every port), is content to pay homage to her in this, and wag his head good humouredly while she bullies him, and call it a “spree” when she robs him, and goes to sea again and again, filling his glass to her amongst his foc’sall mates a thousand miles at sea, and toasts her as “Faithful Poll of Wapping.” AN EVENING AT A WHITECHAPEL “GAFF.”

Happening to pass that way in the morning, I was just in time to witness a gentleman belonging to the establishment (a lank, dirtybearded gentleman he was, who smoked a dirty pipe, and wore the sleeves of his dirty shirt rolled above his dirty elbows) engaged in affixing to a great board that hung against the “gaff” door an announcement of a new piece to be produced that evening.

It was an announcement calculated to arrest the attention of the passers-by, being inscribed in bold and flourishing red and blue letters on orange-coloured cardboard, and that it was the work of the gentleman who published it was evident from the fact that his face and hands and the sides of his trousers were smudged with the same brilliant colours. “ Astounding !” (in blue) ; “Startling!!” (in red) ; “ Don’t miss it !!!” (in red and blue artistically blended) were the headlines of the placard, which further went on to inform the public that that evening “your old favourites, Mr. and Mrs. Douglas Fitzbruce, would appear, with the rest of the talented company, in a new and original equestrian spectacle entitled “Gentleman Jack, or the Game of High Toby,” with real horses and a real carriage. By the time the person with the short pipe had finished tacking up the placard, and had added a few additional touches by means of a small paint-brush to the most telling lines, several young men and women of the neighbourhood had congregated to spell and discuss its contents. Their criticism was highly favourable. They prognosticated that it would be a “clippin’“ piece, not only on account of the real horses, but because Mrs. Douglas Fitzbruce was a “ reg’lar stunner” in the highwayman line. The majority of the critics vowed “ strike them blind ifthey wouldn’t come and see it, while the rest promised themselves the treat provided they could raise the ha’pence. As for me, I made up my mind on the spot.

“First performance at half-past six,” the bill stated, and, desirous of obtaining a front seat, I was at the “gaff” door at least twenty minutes earlier. Not early enough, however. The “pit” and “ box “ passages leading to the inner doors were already densely thronged, and that by individuals who would not submit to elbowing. I did not attempt it. No one is so tenacious of his rights to recognition as a fellow-man as the budding costermonger aged fifteen or sixteen, and no one is readier to uphold his dignity than the female of his bosom, who, although a year or two younger, comes of a stock that will stand no nonsense. The mob pressing about the gaff were nearly all of the sort indicated the exception being a few old men and a few children.

In a few minutes the doors were opened, and we were admitted-the box customers on payment of twopence, and the pit customers at the rate of a penny each. It was not a commodious building, nor particularly handsome, the only attempt at embellishment appearing at the stage end, where for the space of a few feet the plaster wall was covered with ordinary wal1 paper of a grape-vine pattern, and further ornamented by coloured and spangled portraits of Mrs. Douglas Fitzbruce in her celebrated characters of “Cupid” and “Lady Godiva.” There were many copies of these portraits, and they were ticketed for sale-the former at sixpence, and the latter at ninepence; though why the difference is hard to say, since in the matter of spangling, or, indeed, any other kind of covering, the cost of producing Lady Godiva must have been even less than that incurred in perfecting the print of the “God of Love. The stage itself was a mere platform of rough boards; the seats in the pit were of the same material. The boards that were the box seats, however, were planed, and, further to insure the comfort of the gentility patronizing that part of the theatre, there were written bills posted up to the effect that “smoking and spitting was objected to on account of fire,” but as the audience treated this vague and contradictory notice with wellmerited contempt, I was not sorry that I could advance no closer than the back seat of all.

The performance was commenced by a black man, - a brawny ruffian, naked to the waist, and with broad rings of red round his ankles and wrists, illustrative, as presently appeared, of his suffering from the chafing of the manacles be had worn in a state of slavery. It was a very long descriptive ballad, set to the not over lively tune of “Mary Blane,” and the audience-who bad possibly heard it on a few previous occasions - at the termination of the fifth verse expressed a desire that the singer should “cut it short,” and on the oppressed negro taking no notice of the intimation, but beginning the sixth verse in all coolness, somebody threw a largish crust of bread at him, which narrowly missed his head, and somebody else threw a fishbone with more certain aim, so that it was lodged in the unfortunate African’s wool, and there instantly followed an explosion of mirth that by no means tended to solace the indignity cast on him. He glared to the right and the left of him, and, apparently marking the delinquent in the pit, jumped off the stage and rushed towards him. What then transpired I cannot say, not being in a position to see, but after a minute of uproar, and cursing, and swearing, and yelling laughter, the black man scrambled on to the stage again with a good deal of the blacking rubbed off his face, and with his wool wig in his hand, exposing his proper short crop of carroty hair. “Now looky’ here !” exclaimed he, with a desperate, but not entirely successful, effort to deliver himself in a calm and impassionate manner, “ Looky’ here, if you thinks by a-choking me off to get at the new piece a bit the sooner you’re just wrong. When I’ve done a-singin’ my song then the piece’ll be ready and not a oat before, and the more you hinterrups why the longer you’ll be kept a-waitin’, that’s all.” And having expressed these manly and British sentiments in genuine Whitechapel English, he readjusted his wig and became once more an afflicted African bewailing how “Cruel massa stole him wife and lily piccaninny,”

and continued without further interruption till he had accomplished the eighth verse, and was about to commence the ninth when some one behind the scenes audibly whispered, “Off, Ginger,” and off he went, and the star of the evening, Gentleman Jack, came in with a bound and a bow that elicited even a louder roar from the company than had greeted the lodgment of the fish-bone in Ginger’s wool.

It was Mrs. Douglas Fitzbruce fully equipped for the “High Toby game.” She wore buckskin shorts, and boots of brilliant polish knee high and higher, and with spurs to them; her coat was of green velvet slashed with crimson, with a neat little breast pocket, from which peeped a cambric handkerchief; her raven curls hung about her shoulders, and on her head was a three-cornered hat, crimson edged with gold ; under her arm she carried a riding whip, and in each hand a pistol of large size. By way of thanking her friends in the boxes and pit for their generous greeting (it is against the law for the actors to utter so much as a single word during the performance of a “gaff” piece), she uttered a saucy laugh (she could not have been more than forty-five), and, cocking her firearms, let fly at them point blank as it seemed; however, the whistling and stamping of feet that immediately ensued showed that nobody was wounded - indeed, that the audience rather enjoyed being shot at than otherwise.

Being debarred the use of speech, the bold highwayman was driven to the exercise of his vocal talent, in order to explain his own game in general, and the High Toby game in particular. The highwayman sang a song all about another highwayman, who, “mounted on his mare, with his barkers at his belt,” boldly faced an old miller “jogging home from market,” and appropriated his bag of gold after blowing his brains out. Also how the same thief and murderer was pursued by Bow Street runners - one a blue-eyed man. But the “High Toby” boy, turning about in his saddle, took aim with his pistol at the runner and fired, and-

“His eyes of a colour a minute ago,

Were now one of ‘em red and the t’other one blue” a jocular result which the company assembled seemed keenly to appreciate. It terminated the song, and besides shouts of “Hencore !” and stamping and whistling, there was a cry of “Chuck em on!” followed by a casting of halfpence on to the stage. Not many, however; not more than amounted to sixpence; but the dashing highwayman seemed very grateful, and looked after the rolling coins with an avidity that showed how ill he could afford to forego the smallest of them.

Presently in rushed another highwayman, seedier than Gentleman Jack. This was Mr. Douglas Fitzbruce, and, from his being pitted with small-pox, and having a slight squint in his right eye, I at once recognized in him the gentleman who had nailed up the outside poster in the morning. He came in for some applause, but chiefly from the female portion of the audience, the males appearing ·to entertain feelings of envy and jealousy against him as the lawful proprietor of the lady in the long boots.

The second highwayman, who was greeted as Tom King, seemed in a tremendous hurry about something. He slapped his breast energetically, and pointed repeatedly and determinedly in a certain direction; on which Gentleman Jack started vio-lently and commenced to load his pistols to their muzzles with powder and ball, the other highwayman following his example. Then Gentleman Jack straddled his legs and bobbed up and down, working his arms as though he held reins in his bands, as an intimation to the second highwayman that he wanted his horse ; then, waving their hats in the most daring and gallant manner, they both rushed off.

After a lapse of about a minute a hurricane of applause welcomed the approaching sound of horse’s hoofs, and presently appeared Gentleman Jack, with a bit of black crape concealing the upper part of his features, on horseback. It was a remarkably docile horse, not to say a subdued one, and hung its big head down to its thick and heavy legs in a decidedly sleepy manner. Properly, I believe, he should have showed his high mettle by rearing and plunging a bit when Gentleman jack spurred him, but though the bold rider sawed at its bit until the animal’s toothless gums were visible, and spurred it until the rowels were completely clogged with the yielding hair of its flanks, it only wagged its tail languidly and snorted. Again was the sound of approaching hoofs heard, this time accompanied by the rumbling of wheels, and Gentleman Jack, rising in his stirrups, detected the sound and gave a low whistle, which was responded to, and Tom King promptly made his appearance with black crape on his face, and a naked sword in one hand and a horse pistol in the other. Then the highwaymen clasped hands, and looked upwards, as though calling on the gods to witness the compact they had made to stick to each other till the death.

Now all was ready for the robbery, but it couldn’t come off for some unknown reason. The rumbling of wheels had stopped suddenly, though the sound of hoofs had not, and there were heard as well strange muffled “clucking” noises, as of men urging on a horse disinclined to move. This rather spoilt the scene, for the gentlemen of the audience having a practical knowledge of donkeys and horses, and of the obstinate fits that occasionally seize on those animals, instantly guessed the difficulty, and gleefully shouted suggestions as to the proper mode of treatment to be applied to the quadruped that was stopping the play. “Hit him on the ock !” “ Twist the warmint’s tail!” “ Shove him up behind!” Which - if either - of these suggestions was adopted I cannot say, but suddenly the vehicle that contained the highwaymen’s booty bolted on to the stage, amid the uproarious plaudits of the spectators.

It was not a very magnificent turn-out, being nothing else indeed than an old street cab drawn by a vicious brother of the animal Gentleman Jack rode, and made to look slightly like a chariot by the driver’s seat being set round with coloured chintz, hammer-cloth wise. A driver in a cocked hat sat on the box, and a footman with a cocked hat stood on the springs behind ; but neither retained his place long, for from his saddle Gentleman Jack shot the coachman dead as a doornail, while Tom King, rushing on the footman with his naked sword, hacked him down in a twinkling, to the great delight of the young costermongers. Then we came at the pith of the play. Loud shrieks were heard proceeding from the interior of the chariot, and simultaneously a gray-haired old man put his head out at one window and a lovely damsel put her head out at the other. The gray-haired old mart clasped his hands, and the lovely damsel clasped her hands. With a gesture of joy, Gentleman Jack sprang from his horse, and, rushing to the carriage on the damsel side, flung open the door and caught the fair and fainting form that at that identical moment was tumbling out. Tom King rushed to the gray-haired side, and, flinging open the door, dragged out the old man, and, kneeling on his chest, pointed the naked sword at his throat and the muzzle of his pistol at his temple. At which stirring, though somewhatperplexing spectacle, the audience cheered more vociferously than ever, and “chucked on” ninepence at the very least. The most inexplicable part of the business (to me, that is, though nobody else appeared so to regard it) was that the lovely damsel seemed well acquainted with Gentleman Jack, for as soon as that gallant had restored her to consciousness by the administration of kisses and something out of a bottle, she flung her arms round his neck with a cry that caused the gray-haired old man to wriggle visibly in spite of the threatening sword-blade and enormous weight pressing on him. Insignificant as the movement appeared to me, it was enough furnish a clue to the keener perceptions of my fellow-occupants of the box.

“Now don’t you twig, Ben ?” remarked a young woman, with no bonnet and largish coral earrings, to her young man, who bad just before expressed his inability “to make eds or tails on it; “ “Now don’t you twig ? It’s the old cove wots runnin’ away with the gal wot Gentleman Jack used to keep the company of afore he took to High Toby. He’s a takin’ of her off to marry her or somethink, and Gentleman Jack is jest in time to prewent him.”

If this was not a strictly correct guess as to the state of the case, it was not far wrong, as the progress of the dumb-show drama proved. Rising from the prostrate old man, but still keeping the pistol pointed at his head, Tom King approached the chariot and hauled out a box labelled “plate,” and several canvas bags, each branded “£5000”. As each bag was brought out the old man writhed and uttered a deep groan; but Tom’s eyes glared on him, and he dare not rise. At last all the property was removed from the carriage and placed in a heap, and then Gentleman Jack led the beautiful damsel forward, her hand in his, and the pair stood by the moneybags and the plate-chest. The old man rolled his head from side to side and wrung his hands. Tom King whispered in his ear, and the old man shook his head fiercely and verydecidedly. Evidently they wanted him to do something he had no mind to. The fair damsel went on her knees and clasped her hands, and Torn King glared and pressed the muzzle of his pistol to the old man’s head. The old man was melted and shed tears. Seeing which, Tom King was melted too, and shed tears, as did Gentleman Jack and the damsel. Then the old man staggered to his feet, and, spreading his hands over the plate-box and the money-bags and Gentleman Jack and the damsel, as they knelt together with their hands lovingly locked, blessed the lot; and that was the end of the play. SUNDAY EVENING WITH THE “FANCY.”

IT is altogether a mistake to suppose that the poor folk of Bethnal Green sit continually in ashes, and attired in sackcloth. I must confess that the evidence that inclined me to this conclusion was gathered on a Sunday, but, as everybody knows, if you find a poor man merry on a Sunday, you may reasonably infer that his worldly condition is not unsatisfactory. Sunday is a terrible day with the downright destitute. In the hurry and drive and elbowing of workday life, it is not impossible for the “hard-up” man to escape from a sense of his misery, to say nothing of the lingering hope that something may be just on the point of turning up. But on Sunday there is a lull. The bustling tide on which he has waited during the six preceding days, praying that it might presently float him, has subsided for four and twenty hours, stranding him on the comfortless ooze, with nothing more cheering for his contemplation, possibly, than an empty cupboard and several pairs of hungry eyes mutely inquiring when dinner will be ready.

But, if flocking to a fair may be taken as a proof of minds contented and well at ease, we may dry our eyes and cease to mourn the existence of Hollybush Place and Crispin’s Alley. At the rear of Shoreditch Church, and extending a distance of at least half-a-mile, is a long, narrow thoroughfare, part of which is Hare Street, and in that insalubrious locality the reader’s duti-ful servant found himself while the church bells were ringing on a Sunday morning. One of the churches from which the inviting sound proceeded was in the middle of Hare Street, and, chiming in with the shouting from leathern throats of “Who’ll buy a cock?” “Who ses three piball mice for a tanner?” “Who’ll give three hog (shillings) for a pegging finch?’ “Almond nuts!” “Ha’penny a lot, whelks ;” “Toss or buy!” “Turf, green turf!” the effect produced was somewhat peculiar.

The pavement being much too narrow to accommodate the pressing throng, the muddy road was crowded as well. It would be more difficult to specify what you might not buy in the way of live stock that morning in Hare Street, than to enumerate what was offered for sale. If you wanted chickens, there they were in baskets, in bags, and held by the legs, and swinging in feathery bunches from the dirty fists of the vendors. If you wanted a Cochin China fowl, there was a prime chance for you, for ploughing through the mire came a gaunt bird of that species struggling with all the pluck of his breed against a boy who had him by the tail, and came splashing after him. Did you want a goat, there were three “agoin’ for the price of dawg’s meat,” as the person charged with their disposal declared. Were you desirous of possessing a donkey, there was one, together with a commodious barrow and four “tater sieves,” - the lot for two pun’ fifteen! Were you inclined to rabbits, lopeared, dewlapped, smut, or butterfly, you might here take your pick from a thousand. Ferrets, door-mice, white mice, black mice, rats for the pits, fancy rats, white, with red eyes and ginger-coloured rats, with tremendous teeth and whiskers; hedgehogs, for the destruction of black-beetles, guineapigs, tortoises. Is your heart set on any of these? If so, rejoice that you are in Hare Street on a Sunday morning.

But, before all, Hare Street is strongest in singing birds. Not so much for sale seemingly, as brought out for an airing. There they were, not here and there one, but by dozens and hundreds - goldfinches and chaffinches chiefly, the cages that contain them tied in handkerchiefs, silk and cotton, and carried swinging in the hand, and jostling amongst the rude mob, as though they were of no more account than parcels of most ordinary merchandise, But the most amazing part of the business was, that not only did the imprisoned and much-hustled finches continue to exist under such circumstances, but they retained their perches and their equanimity in the most perfect manner, and sang as they were carried. To what amount and what sort of training these poor little birds had been subjected it is hard to guess. There they were, however, all in the dark, with no purer air to breathe than the ordinary Hare Street air, further poisoned by the presence of the foul mob, hung dangling at arm’s length, and jostled, and shook, and spun about, yet raising their tiny pipes as though nothing at all was the matter, and they were as much at their ease as the grimy-faced, short-pipe puffing gentry that carried them. My particular attention was directed to a young man of the neighbourhood, who wore the peak of his cap over his left ear, and who, besides a bird in a handkerchief, carried a bull-terrier pup affectionately hugged to his bosom.

“On for a deal ?” the young man inquired, stopping abruptly as he caught my inquiring gaze. “What for ?” “Pup. Three months old; comes o’ the best warmint bitch out. Buy him ?- arf a quid!” “I don’t want a dog. I might buy a bird that was cheap. What do you want for that one in the cage ?”

“What for the finch ? I don’t want nothink for the finch. If you want a peggin’ finch I dare say I can put you on to one, but this ere one o’ mine ain’t a-goin’. Do you want a peggin’ finch ?”

“Is a finch that can ‘peg’ dearer than one that can’t? What does it peg at ?” I innocently inquired. However, the young man found offence in my answer. Curling his expressive upper lip, and jerking his head scornfully, “You had better buy a guinea-pig with your money,” said he, and walked off. I walked the length of the fair through and through, but though I frequently tried to court the attention of a person with a musical bundle, I was in no case successful. But I had fixed my mind on ascertaining all about finches and their peggings, and as it was now one o’clock, and the public-house doors were opened, I joined the thirsty throng waiting for admittance, knowing how men will talk over their beer, and hoping by that means to get at the secret. It was a hazardous experiment. The beer of Brick Lane, though strong, is peculiar as to its flavour, and with any one not accustomed to it a little goes a long way. It was not so, however, with my brother bibbers, Many hours had elapsed since their lips had pressed a pewter pot, and their return to their love was a spectacle to behold. They gazed on its creamy head as on the face of a sweetheart, and, still fixing their eyes on it, gently and by a curious action of the muscles of the wrist gave to the vessel a circular motion so that the foam wantoned with the edge of the cool, shining pewter, and threatened to spill. Then, like snatching a kiss, the creamy crown and the lips met, the drinker half closed his eyes, and there ensued a period of bliss, prolonged, unspeakable.

There were a good many performers before the bar, and before every man had re-plighted his troth and put himself in condition to discuss ordinary topics, my measure of Brick Lane beer was considerably reduced. But alas! even when they began to talk I was almost as much in the dark as ever. The conversation was strictly birdy. One person was bragging of his “slamming” goldfinch, and there was a dispute as to how many “slams” it could execute within a given time. Anotherindividual button-holed a friend, and told him all about his “greypates,” while a third was learned on the subject of linnets, and recited that able bird’s sixty-four distinct notes, but of which the only sentence I could make out was “Tollic, tollic, tollic, chew-chew-tew-wit-joey,” and as the man had a very gruff voice and gave the recitation with a strong nasal twang, I am afraid that my ideas of the linnet’s song were not exalted by the lesson. There was presently some talk about chaffinches and “chaffinch matches,” and then I began to glean a little real information. I learned that in the very house we were then in the “ muffin man” had sung his bird against another songster the property of a gentleman whom the company spoke of as “More-Antique,” on the previous Thursday, for £3 a side, and that More-Antique had lost by three chalks. The terms of the said match appeared to be that each man hung up his bird against the wall, in the position he best fancied, and that the finch that uttered the greatest number of perfect notes within the space of fifteen minutes - an impartial person sitting at a table, and chalking down the notes as they were delivered-should be the winner. A “perfect note,” as described by the gentleman who was so great in linnets, was “toll-loll-loll chuck weedo,” and if in its utterance the bird abated a single syllable of the note it didn’t count in the scoring.

The conversation changing from chaffinches, I was about to take my departure, when the gruff-voiced man politely stepped up to me with a printed card in his hand. It was black- bordered, and as he offered it to me he remarked,

“Did yer know him ?”

As he spoke he laid his finger on the name of “Jemmy Baldwin,” punted on the black-bordered ticket. I replied that I wasn’t quite sure that I did know him, but at the same time inquired what was the matter with Jemmy.

“Snuffed it,” replied the gruff man impressively - “snuffed it, and left the missus and the kids - eight on ‘em - in Queer Street.Howsomever, take a ticket; it’s only threepence, and then you’ll know all about it.”

I took the ticket, which informed a sympathetic public that “Jemmy Baldwin had died sudden, leaving nothing to bury him,” and “that a few friends would meet that (Sunday) night at the Tinkers’ Arms, Spicer Street, for the benefit of the widow and orphans. P.S.-Mr. Cullum will show his celebrated battling finch.” The last line decided me as to my line of conduct.

Between seven and eight that evening I once more found my way to the Tinkers’ Arms, and on producing my ticket was directed to the “parlour,” which was at the end of a passage and down a flight of steps, giving rise to the supposition that the chamber now so called was at one time a kitchen or beer-cellar. Early in the night as it was, the aspect of the parlour was significant of the esteem in which the late Jemmy Baldwin was held. Capable of accommodating about twenty-five persons comfortably, the parlour was made to hold at least seventy, and as there was a tremendous fire in the grate, and at least half the seventy were tobacco smokers, the terrible fog that came lazily belching out on one as the door was opened may be easily imagined. At first glance I thought that there could not possibly be room for another individual, but my friend with the gruff voice was there, and, recognizing me, rose and beckoned me with the stem of his pipe to come and sit beside him, an invitation I at once availed myself of.

“Rather crowded,” I remarked.

“Will be bimeby,” replied the gruff man. “Cullum ain’t come yet, but he’s sent his finch. That’s Cullum’s finch over agin the chimbley. That there back cage with the black crape on it is Jemmy’s goldfinch, poor feller.”

Whether the gruff man’s expression of compassion was intended for the deceased Jemmy or the goldfinch was not clear, but certainly the bird, whose cage was in mourning, was not unworthy of pity. There it hung, poor little creature, and there, as I could contrive to make out through the dense fog of tobacco smoke, now that my attention was specially called to the matter, hung thirty or forty small birdcages, each with an occupant. On every table in the room, further sweltered and stifled by having its habitation enveloped in a handkerchief, were at least half-a-dozen similar cages, and the birds within could be heard hopping about and chirping as merry as crickets. Will any learned ornithologist kindly unravel the mystery? How is it that my goldfinch would die before morning if I were guilty of the barbarity of hanging him on retiring to bed beneath my bed-curtains, and that the “muffin man’s” goldfinch retains its sprightliness in an atmosphere foul enough to poison a well-sinker? How is it that any dicky-bird of mine will pine and die if the smallest quantity of tainted matter is allowed to remain in his house, while cat’s-meat sellers with impunity combine the bird-dealing business with their proper one, and perch their “store cages,” containing songsters of every kind - including that ethereal creature, the skylark - on mounds of feculent horseflesh in their shop-windows?

To return, however, to the parlour of the Tinkers’ Arms. Not for the sake of anything that remains to be said concerning poor Mr. Baldwin’s benefit, or the show of birds that graced it. The “show” meant nothing at all, and why on earth the gentlemen who met to smoke their pipes could not have left their finches at home was altogether a puzzle. In nine cases out of ten the cages that were brought in tied in a handkerchief remained so standing on the table by the side of the owner’s pint-pot during the hour or so that I remained in the room, nobody inquiring after the sweet-throated tenants, or making, as far as I could see, the slightest allusion to them. I inquired of my gruff-voiced friend (who, by-the-by, turned out to be a very decent fellow) where was the use of bringing the birds if they didn’t uncover them for people to see. “Oh, I don’t know,” he replied. “It’s their fancy, don’t yer know; that and flashness,” an explanation which I submit to the reader without a word of comment.

By nine o’clock the room became at least thirty per cent. more crowded than when I entered it, and I was not sorry to hear my gruff friend presently remark that he had had almost enough of it. “Besides,” said he, “I promised to look in at the Ship in Hunt Street; there’s a dawg-show there to-night; Lemike’s in the chair. Lemike’s a-goin’ to show his white bulldawg, and King’s dawg Prince’ll be there.”

“I’ll take a turn there with you if you like,” said I, and away we went there and then.

Hunt Street is a rather dark street, and the Ship Tavern not so brilliantly illuminated as it might be; but there was no difficulty in discovering it, knowing beforehand that dogs were there assembled. The deep-mouthed barking of bulldogs, the sharp challenging bark of the English terrier, the pettish, snappish bark of the spaniels and “toys” blended to make an uproar not commonly heard. The gruffvoiced man led the way past the bar, before which a dozen or so of doggy men, with their canine property in their arms, or between their legs, were carousing, and into a room beyond.

In all respects it was an inferior spectacle to that presented by the lively room at the Tinkers’ Arms. The room itself was filthy in the extreme; its walls and ceiling black with tobacco smoke, and the atmosphere of the place simply pestilential. As for the companydogs and men - the former, though possibly in a minority, formed by far the most respectable portion - indeed, it was quite saddening to see some of the well-bred dogs in such detestable company.

The chairman was not at his post, a circumstance that seemed to puzzle the company generally not a little, as Mr. Lemike was known to be the most punctual of men, and always proud and happy to bring his pets to a show. But, alas for poor Mr. Lemike! his absence was presently accounted for. It was sorrow and deep distress that kept him away from the Ship that night. Himself a publican, the police had most provokingly paid an untimely visit to his house a day or two before, and there discovered fifty-three young thieves and their sweethearts engaged in a raffle in Mr. Lemike’s tap-room;£5 was the penalty in which the unfortunate publican was mulct, with the magisterial intimation that it would be wasting his time to apply next March for a renewal of his licence. No wonder that Mr. Lemike had no heart for dog-shows that Sunday night.

The place was crowded, and there was scarcely standing room, so that, until you took courage from the indifference displayed by the company generally, one could not help feeling slightly nervous at the close proximity of furious bull-dogs, with glaring eyes and lolling tongues, savage at sight of each other, and not improbably hard-pressed by thirst in that hot, close den, and panting for the blood of the first creature they could plant their teeth in. True, their masters, not caring to trust to their leash, held them each by the collar as a policeman holds a thief; but this seemed only to increase their fury, and they strained and strove, as only a bull-dog can, to break away, and then, with one’s calf within a foot of the monsters’ jaws, and not even the protection of a Wellington boot, came the thrilling reflection, “ If it should!”

Different, too, from the bird-show was the present exhibition in the matter of passive enjoyments of the “fancy involved. Louder even than the barking of the bigger dogs was the uproar of shockheaded, loud-mouthed ruffians extolling the qualities of their canine nets, and staking the security of their eyes and limbs - of their lives even on the truth of the barefaced lies that came so freely from their blasphemous mouths. Matches for dog to fight dog, for dogs to kill rats against time, and against each other, and for dogs to “show for points,” were yelled out With many oaths, and with a horrible din that made one shudder. And in this precious amusement, in this one foul pot-house, were engaged at least sixty men, all on a Sunday evening.

There is always to be met an exception to the prevailing rule, and it was not wanting on the present occasion. This was a man with a bull-dog pup, who sat in a corner nursing his pet, and speaking not until he was spoken to. He was a middle-aged man this, with long, well-oiled hair, the ends of which were trained to turn under, and, as was plain to be seen, his hair and his pup were that man’s chief treasures on earth. It was almost melancholy to reflect that human hair will decay as age creeps on - that puppies will grow and assume the stature of mature dogs. It was a white puppy, and he nursed it like a baby, with its hideous head resting against his greasy bosom. Alternately he sleeked his hair and coaxed it to remain turned under at the ends, and fondled the bull-dog, and tenderly rubbed its gums with his forefinger. “That’s a pooty thing,” remarked a connoisseur, “what might be the age on it?” - “Seven months and a week,” replied the oily man, looking up with almost maternal pride in his eyes; “it’s pooty, as you say, now, but what will it be bimeby ?” THREE YEARS OF PENAL SERVITUDE.

IT is not necessary for me to tell my name, the exact nature of the offence of which I was convicted, or the precise date of the conviction. I may say, however, and the reader may take it as truth - as indeed he may every line that is here printed - that up to the time when I was arrested I never before in my life knew what that sort of trouble was - never was locked up for so long as a single night, or saw the inside of a station-house cell.

How my misfortune came about is easy enough to explain. I was a young man, and I lodged away from home and I liked to do as other young men, go about a bit of evenings to see a play, or hear a song along with two or three mates employed at our firm, and young fellows like myself. That led to my picking up a sweetheart - a thorough good girl - and we kept company. She worked in the day, and had her evenings, and of course I took her out. Then the game that cost me three years’ liberty began. My wages were only eighteen shillings a week, and out of that I paid twelve for board and lodging and washing, so that there was only six left for clothes, going out, tobacco, and everything. I won’t state the nature of the goods our firm dealt in, but half a crown’s worth might easily be stowed in the waistcoat-pocket, and in a manner of speaking you were free to help yourself out of thousands of pounds’ worth.

The young woman just mentioned was very respectable, and dressed well ; and so was I well-dressed, and, as she thought, respectable too. I went on courting her honourable, and from the first meaning to marry her, but I didn’t have the pluck to tell her how small my wages were. If I had it would have opened her eyes at once, so I kept it dark, and by-and-by we got married, and still I didn’t tell her how much I got a week. I asked her what she thought she could do comfortably with, and she said she thought she could do with a guinea if I bought my own tobacco and beer. “Very well,” I says, “then it shall be a guinea a week, my dear.” That was three shillings more than I was earning, and of course it had to be made up, and I needn’t again mention how, and things went on pretty comfortable (barring the thought that would at times come across me of the kick-up there would if I should be found out) for a year. We had two rooms nicely furnished (for Jenny was a beautiful little manager) and come the time a baby was born-a boy it was. That seemed the beginning of the down-hill. Everything was more expensive, she was ill a longish time, and the firm suffered. I was wretched for weeks and weeks before the blow-up came, and in my own mind was not at all surprised when on leaving the warehouse one evening a man whom I knew in an instant, in spite of his private clothes, taps me on the shoulder and says, “I want a word with you, young man. Just step in here.”

Into the counting-house that was, and when I got in who should be there but two of my mates, looking as white as death, and sitting on two of the office-stools with handcuffs on. “Shall I search you, or will you hand over all that doesn’t belong to you that you have in your pockets?” said the detective. So where was the use of having a word to say for myself? I pulled out what I had in my waistcoat-pocket, and something else that I had folded up in my neck-handkerchief; and laid them on the table. “Is that all ?” said the young governor, who was there all the time. “That is all, sir,” answered the plainclothes man (who, it afterwards came out, had been watching us since the morning, and knew what goods we had taken and how we had disposed of them). “Very well; take them away, and I will be at the station presently to make the charge,” said the young governor, who naturally was very savage and spiteful.

“Oh it’s only you, sir ; come along in, sir ; we’re a little thick up here, you see, sir.” But surely you don’t both live through the week on half-a-crown and a quartern loaf!” “But do you really get nothing else?” “But why don’t she go into the workhouse?” “Hu-ssh!” “Lor a mussy, who said you was a-goin’ ?” remonstrated her partner. “I won’t go. I’ll never go. I’d sooner die.” “Well! course I’m well,” growled the count. “Missus out?” “Dun no and don’t keer ?” “She isn’t drinking, is she ?” “Dun no and don’t keer ?” “It’s such a lovely morning quite hot in the sun.” “Humph!” “Werry likely.” “Don’t you think it would do you good to get up and have a walk?” “Good.mornin’.” “This bright weather will make the work stir, don’t you think?” “GOOD-MORNIN’!” “Your little boy appears very ill,” I remarked. “It won’t be long before it requires to be moved again, I should imagine, judging from its growth towards your doorstep.” “But why do you stay here?” I asked. “Why? we must, because we can t get a place at the rent we can afford to pay anywhere else. That question’s very soon answered.” “What rent do you pay?” In the alley adjoining we found the house where lived the man and his family last on our visiting list. “I think you will admit after you have witnessed it that a more distressful sight you never saw,” remarked my guide. “But what do they do all day?” I asked. One morning he was discovered horribly maimed and dead. “Here you are, then !” exclaimed the hearse driver.