As I stood opposite the woman boiling
the children's clothes—she had not even a
piece of soap to wash them with—and apologising
for her occupation, I conld take in
all these things without appearing to notice
them, and could even correct my inventory.
I had missed, at the first glance, some half
a pound of bread in the otherwise empty
safe, an old red ragged crinoline hanging
on the handle of the door by which I had
entered, and certain fragments of rusty iron
scattered on the floor, which looked like
broken tools and a piece of stove-pipe.
A child stood looking on. On the box
nearest to the fire sat two younger children;
one, a delicate and pretty little
creature whom the other sometimes kissed.

This woman, like the last, was woefully
shabby, and was degenerating to the
Bosjesman complexion. But her figure,
and the ghost of a certain vivacity about
her, and the spectre of a dimple in her
cheek, carried my memory strangely back
to the old days of the Adelphi Theatre,
London, when Mrs. Fitzwilliam was the
friend of Victorine.

"May I ask you what your husband
is?"

"He's a coal-porter, sir." With a glance
and a sigh towards the bed.

"Is he out of work?"

"Oh yes, sir, and work's at all times very
very scanty with him, and now he's laid
up."

"It's my legs," said the man upon the
bed, " I'll unroll 'em." And immediately
began.

"Have you any older children?"

"I have a daughter that does the needlework,
and I have a son that does what he
can. She's at her work now, and he's
trying for work."

"Do they live here?"

"They sleep here. They can't afford to
pay more rent, and so they come here at
night. The rent is very hard upon us.
It's rose upon us too, now—sixpence a
week—on account of these new changes in
the law, about the rates. We are a week
behind; the landlord's been shaking and
rattling at that door, frightful; he says
he'll turn us out. I don't know what's to
come of it."

The man upon the bed ruefully interposed:
"Here's my legs. The skin's
broke, besides the swelling. I have had a
many kicks, working, one way and another."

He looked at his legs (which were
much discoloured and misshapen) for a
while, and then appearing to remember
that they were not popular with his family,
rolled them up again, as if they were
something in the nature of maps or plans
that were not wanted to be referred to,
lay hopelessly down on his back once more
with his fantail hat over his face, and
stirred not.

"Do your eldest son and daughter sleep
in that cupboard?"

"Yes," replied the woman.

"With the children?"

"Yes. We have to get together for
warmth. We have little to cover us."

"Have you nothing by you to eat but
the piece of bread I see there?"

"Nothing. And we had the rest of the
loaf for our breakfast, with water. I don't
know what's to come of it."

"Have you no prospect of improvement?"

"If my eldest son earns anything to-day,
he'll bring it home. Then we shall have
something to eat to-night, and may be able
to do something towards the rent. If not,
I don't know what's to come of it."

"This is a sad state of things."

"Yes, sir, it's a hard, hard life. Take
care of the stairs as you go sir—they're
broken—and good day, sir!"

These poople had a mortal dread of
entering the workhouse, and received no
out-of-door relief.

In another room in still another tenement,
I found a very decent woman with
five children—the last, a baby, and she
herself a patient of the parish doctor—to
whom, her husband being in the Hospital,
the Union allowed for the support of herself
and family, four shillings a week and
five loaves. I suppose when Thisman,
M.P., and Thatman, M.P., and the public
blessing Party, lay their heads together
in course of time, and come to an Equalisation
of Rating, she may go down the Dance
of Death to the tune of sixpence more.

I could enter no other houses for that
one while, for I could not bear the contemplation
of the children. Such heart as I
had summoned to sustain me against the
miseries of the adults, failed me when I
looked at the children. I saw how young
they were, how hungry, how serious and
still. I thought of them, sick and dying
in those lairs. I could think of them
dead, without anguish; but to think of
them, so suffering and so dying, quite unmanned
me.

Down by the river's bank in Ratcliffe, I
was turning upward by a side street,
therefore, to regain the railway, when my