work. There are hundreds and hundreds of
others who've been simply ruined by what you
see." A. more complete picture of devastation
could not be imagined. Looking down from
our vantage-point on the roof, we trace the
progress of destruction as it is being carried on, and
we see its ravages on every side. Whole streets
of small tenements have disappeared as utterly
as Aladdin's palace or Jonah's gourd. Acre
upon acre out of the heart of a densely-populated
district has been laid bare. Huge stacks
of old bricks, piebald with the mortar sticking
to them; heaps of discoloured time-worn woodwork,
such as staircases, wainscots, floorings, and
heavy beams; masses of plaster, with rafters and
laths sticking up at odd angles, as if belonging
to a dishevelled and dusty giant porcupine;
ragged ugly walls with patches of garish-
coloured paper, to mark where rooms once
were; front sections of houses only half pulled
down, and with their broken windows and
crumbling faces looking like very ill-used stage
flats; a barren wilderness of nondescript
rubbish, hedged in by artificial ruins; and vast
tracts on which sturdy labourers are at work
with pickaxe and shovel, make up the prospect
before us. Leaning over the narrow parapet, I
see the same picture duplicated to right and left.
Everywhere roofless ghastly ruins, only varied
by vast Saharas of brickdust, old building
materials, and a repetition of the shapeless heaps of
rubbish. Here or there, a tree or shrub may be
seen mournfully asserting its vitality, and looking
amid the uniform waste like a landmark in
flooded fields. A lean and hungry dog, picking
its way among the broken stones and artificial
mounds, as if vainly seeking its old kennel;
some shattered dovecots, with a drouthy and
inquisitive-looking pigeon perched upon them;
a few traces of broken plates and crockery; a
rusty spoon or two, and a brown old shoe; are
the only waifs and strays which speak of the
thousands of men, women, and children who
were dwelling here a few months ago. Pompeii
and Herculaneum are redolent of living human
interest when compared with the ugly blank
below. In the lava-covered cities, symbols
of the busy pleasure-loving life of nearly two
thousand years ago arrest you at every corner.
Here, with the late inhabitants still alive and
working, every vestige of their existence has
been swept away. Some have received
compensation, some have not, and I converse with
representative men of each class before I leave
the printing-works.

"i was thirteen years a small householder
over the way, sir; a yearly tenant, and let part
of my house off. t had a nice little place
enough, and kept four rooms for myself and
my family. When it was arranged that the
company was to take all, an auctioneer and valuer
called on me, and offered to make everything
straight, and to get me good compensation, free
of expense. I can't say I was treated exactly
badly. They gave me a small sum o' money
down; but then look at what I have had to do
with it, and how differently I have to live.
Why, I can't get a house. There ain't such a
thing to let, suitable to a man of my means,
unless I went miles and miles away from my
work. No, sir, I should not like to live out o'
town. I like the country as well as any man,
and on a Sunday, or if one takes a holiday,
theyre ain't a better way of spendin' it, to my
mind, than taking your railway ticket, and
getting right away from the dust and smoke.
But it ain't in nature to want to travel miles
every day, when your work begins at six in
the morning; and, as Mr. Temple here will
tell you, masters ain't over-fond of having their
men live away. So I've had to take apartments,
and me and my wife and the four children
are crammed into two rooms, and pay
more for them than we kept four for, when I'd
a place of my own. My father lived a few
doors from me, and had bin in the same house
three-and-twenty years, a yearly tenant. He's
had to take apartments too, and we've both to
go three miles and a half every night and morning
to and from our work. No, sir, I can't tell
you where the poor people who'd only one
room have got to. Cram in wherever they can,
that's the fact of it; and nobody knows but
themselves the trouble and worry they've had
to get shelter at all. Many of 'em, as I've
heard, were taken into the workhouse; and the
model lodging-house up the road had so many
more hundred applications than they could find
room for, that none of us thought of applying
there."

Mr. Temple confirms everything advanced by
his workman, supplementing it by a wish that
all the people in his employ could live on the
premises, or at most not further off than next
door.

"I was only a monthly tenant, so I didn't get
a penny of compensation," said a stout fresh-
coloured man, " though I'd lived in the same
place for the last six years, and I've had to take
one bit of a room for the price I paid for three
good ones, besides having to walk all that way
home night and morning. No, sir, I didn't
apply at any of the homes or model lodging-
houses. One thing was, I knew they were all
full; and then, to tell the truth, I don't much
fancy that sort of place myself."

On my expressing surprise at what I thought
an error of judgment, and touching lightly upon
the advantages offered by the model dwellings I
had seen, he said:

"Oh, they're uncommon nice when you're
once in 'em, nobody can deny that; it's the bein'
seen goin' in and out of one of those barrack sort
o' places that I don't like, let alone not bein' able
to find one unoccupied. As it is, I have to put
up with a nasty little place you couldn't swing
a cat in, and all because a blessed railway
company takes it into its head to want the house I'm
livin' comfortable in. Talk o' reform bills! The
sort o' reform bill I'd like would be one to
prevent big companies having it all their own
way, and to let us keep ourselves to ourselves
without bother or interference."

Most of the men I talked to, held similar