but Dick took little notice, and was engaged
throwing stones at a lot of geese about thirty
yards down the road.

We got into Billericay at five o'clock, and went
to a policeman for a ticket. This policeman was
a long man, and a great bully, and made divers
grand efforts to impress us with a sense of his
importance; he took our names, height, colour
of hair, eyes, &c., and gave us a ticket with as
magnificent an air as if he was conferring
upon us a pension. Billericay workhouse is a
fine building with an imposing gateway. An
old porter took our tickets, and having made a
memorandum of them, conducted us to the
casual ward, which was a small place, and
smelt horribly. Some straw on a raised board
was the bed, and the covering was a
counterpane that might have been white once,
but from long service it had grown grey or
nearly black. Right opposite the bed, hung
against the wall, was a figure of wood. This
figure was clothed in carpet, and had the wrong
or white side on one arm, one leg, and half the
body, and the red or right side on the
corresponding parts. It had a notice under it, that
any person tearing up clothes in Billericay
workhouse would be provided with a suit of
the above description, and afterwards taken
before a magistrate. The appearance of a person
dressed in this way must be highly ludicrous,
and I was given to understand by a pauper in
the house that it had the desired etfect, and that
the guardians were rarely troubled by a "tear-
up." The figure against the wall was as large
as a man, and I remember being rather startled
when I awoke in the morning by its appearance.
All kinds of names were written on the
whitewashed walls; among them a piece of
poetry, which began:

   And what do you think is Billericay law?
   Why, lying till eleven in the dirty straw.

I forget the rest of it, but remember that it
contained about a dozen lines, and that toward the
latter end it was very abusive of the master of
the workhouse. It was signed, "Bow-street."
Scottie assured me that this gentleman's effusions
were to be seen in most workhouses in the
country, and that he had the honour of the
great poet's personal acquaintance. True to the
rhyme of "Bow-street," we were kept until
eleven, and, what is surprising, had nothing to
do but lie in bed. A piece of bread at night.,
and a similar piece in the morning , was all the
food we got.

From the time I left London to when I
returned, I never begged; but Scottie and the
woman did. Dick did very little begging, either.
He told me he didn't come exactly to cadge, but
to steal. We went on very poorly in the way of
eating, and, except what we got from Scottie
and the workhouses, had but little indeed, until
after we left Chelmsford. We went along very
fast on this morning, which was Sunday, until
we came to a brook, where we all washed and
wiped our faces as best we could, with the
inside lining of our coats; Scottie with the girl's
dress. We got near to Chelmsford in the afternoon,
when the three o'clock church bells were
ringing. Profiting by the Orsett experience,
we stayed a little distance outside it until a
more advanced hour. It was at a sharp turn in
the road, opposite a stile that led into the town,
that we lay down and rolled about for full two
hours. Two gentlemen came past, and offered
us tracts, repeating a pious sentence that I
have heard before and since. We took them.
Scottie inquired if the gentlemen had any
loose cash to spare? No; but plenty of tracts.
At about five o'clock we went down into the
town, and made towards the police-station, and
got a ticket. The tickets told us that we
were vagrants, and would have to do four hours'
work for the food and lodgings given us; but it
was not done. In going towards the workhouse,
right through the town, we of course, on Sunday
night, met numerous crowds of well-dressed
people, and I have a painful recollection of
my humiliation. The people stared hard
at us, and I felt it keenly to think I had
come to this. This shame got obliterated
in a few months, and I could walk in a ragged
state through any street with the greatest
composure.

The man at the porter's lodge came out
remarkably sharp, like a jack-in-the-box, and made
a sharp snap at every word we said. When
he had taken our names, he shouted to some
one else further up the walk, and presently a
gentleman was seen standing at a door in the
main building, smiling and apparently on good
terms with himself and everybody else. We
went up to him, and he took our names
and descriptions. I told him I was a
compositor. "Oh, indeed! and where have you
worked last?" "In the Standard office," I
said, because it came soonest to rny lips. "And
pray, what made you tramp about like this?"
This being sharp questioning, I floundered a little,
and have but a faint idea what answer I gave.
He took it kindly, though, and gave me some
private details how a brother of his was in the
same trade, and even complimented me by
saying, "I was sure, soon as ever I saw you, that
you was above the ordinary run of chaps wot
come here," He gave us some bread, and called
out to a boy (a pauper lad), "Here, Jim, take
this gentleman to the ward set apart for—for—
now then, you know—and don't stand gaping
there." Jim went along at a slow march, with
his chin glancing heavenward, towards the casual
ward: which is a moderate-sized place, and
similar to Billericay in its bedding.

We were awakened at seven in the morning,
when we expected to have to do our four hours'
work, but my good-tempered friend let us off,
and giving us each a piece of bread, bade us
good morning. Scottie and the woman
accompanied us as far as the bottom of the road, and
then we parted. I may as well mention, that in
about a week after this, I saw this girl at one of
the workhouse gates in London, disfigured with
a black eye, and that she told me, that soon
after they had left Chelmsford, Scottie ill treated