fingers, and leaves them raw and bleeding, much
as lf the cuticle were rubbed off with a file; for
each bit of sand-paper is smoothed and patted
down by hand, and many hours of this work
produce their inevitable effect. "Drying the
boxes thoroughly, sir, is another trouble; for
we've to spread them out on the floor all night,
and the wet paste makes the place damp, and if the
boxes ain't quite dry they won't pay us for them
when we send them in." It is needless to
describe the place. A squalid little hole, where
the bed takes up one-third of the flooring space;
a table, two chairs, half a dozen of the
commonest utensils, and a few cheap pictures on
the walls, make up the living, sleeping, and
working home of this confirmed invalid and her
three children. For bedding, are discoloured
unexplainable rags; athwart the bed, suspended
from a string, hang fragments of clothes, the
use of which can scarcely be distinguished. It
is difficult to advance a step without crunching
match-boxes under foot; and when our party
of three all stand inside the door, it is impossible
to turn round or stir. The ages of the three
girls seem to range from three or four to twelve,
but this is a point on which guessing is
hazardous, so wan and stunted are they.
Elsewhere we put searching questions, and have
truthful answers in return. But in the presence
of the apparently dying figure on the bed this
is impossible. There was such an obvious
wish to do the honours of the miserable little
home, and to give strangers the information
they sought, that we listened patiently to the
story told with so much difficulty and pain; but
it would have been cruel to prolong the trial, so
on the poor speaker sinking back exhausted we
bid the little toilers good day, and set out again
upon our prescribed round. Let us say at once
that this was the most painful visit made throughout
the day. Poverty, dire, bitter, crushing,
we saw in sad abundance; invalids too ill to
work, infants, with the business cares of men
and women, acting as bread-winners for a
family, were plentiful enough; lives where one
long struggle with starvation, misery, and
disease is the rule, were revealed; but we
never seemed to stand so nearly in the presence
of Death as here. In the antithesis between
the poor woman's state and her plaint concerning
farthings'-worth of flour and hemp, and
her inability to cut out labels, there was
something inexpressibly shocking.

A smiling brunette, wretchedly attired, but
healthy and cheerful, is passing the door as we
come out. On her arm she carries a bulky
parcel of light goods. In a West-end thoroughfare
she would be an apprentice carrying home
fancy millinery, caps, bonnets, or what not.
Here, her bundle consists of match-boxes, and
matches-boxes only. "Nine gross of 'em sir,
I'm just taking home, when I shall get the
money and paper and material for making
more. Make a good many a day? Oh yes,
sir, and could make more, only trade's dreadful
slack, and there's such a lot at it; that's where
it is. Well, I don't know the number of where
I live, and that's the truth; but, it's the last
house but one on the right, and glad to see
you, Mrs. Jones" — a curtsey here to the
district, visitor — "as you allers know, ma'am,
don't you?" All this, with a bright alacrity,
an absence of fawning, or of making out a case
for pity, very refreshing.

Following our guide, we are soon in another
interior devoted to the one calling. A larger
room this, with more evidences of comfort,
greater adornment, and where the squalid air
of bitter poverty is less apparent.

"Mother is ill in bed in the corner, with
pains in her limbs, and is hard of hearing as
well, so we just get on the best we can without
her. Four of us work, me and my two
little brothers and my sister" (the speaker is
a good-looking girl of nineteen, who smiles and
dimples through her begrimed face as if to
prove unconsciously that innate cheerfulness is
more than a match for worldly ills); "and if
ve work very hard indeed, we can make our
fourteen gross in a day. Well, of course that
means beginning at seven in the morning and
sticking to it till ten at night; but it ain't so
bad considerin', you know, and there's many
worse off than what we are, of course. Father's
a sawyer, but his work's been very slack, and
there's not much doing anywheres, so far as I
know. Wouldn't it be better for me to go out to
service? Perhaps it would" (hesitation), "only
I don't know much about a house, you see,
only having been at home. Yes, I'd be willing
to try; and if girls are wanted, as you say,
ma'am, and you could get me a place, I'd be
very glad."

The mother in bed in the corner moves
restlessly, but takes no part in this conversation,
and the children go on converting paper and
wood into boxes unmoved. Here, however,
all we see (for the sick mother covers her head
in the scanty bed-clothes) look well and hearty;
and though, on being pressed, the fourteen
gross turns out to be rather a theoretical than
a practical standard of a day's work, the little
labourers look contented and comparatively
happy. The portraits of Miss Adah Isaacs Menken,
and of a huge turkey-cock, like an inflamed
beadle, adorn the mantelshelf; but match-boxes
formed and unformed, are the principal furniture
of the room.

Crossing the road, we are next in a little
cellar room, which is literally crammed. The
husband is out, selling hearth-stones. A puny
sickly infant is asleep on the bed; the mother
and married daughter, herself a mother, a little
boy, and a neighbour, are cutting and pasting
and shaping for dear life. There is wonderful
uniformity in the statistics furnished us. In this
house they can, by sticking steadily at it, make
eight gross of boxes a day; prices as before,
twopence-halfpenny a gross. The extra trouble
given by the labels provided being of thinner
than usual, the difficulty of drying the
work before sending in, owing to want of
space, the dislike the sturdy urchin of ten has
to Sunday-school, and the terrible decrease in