wooden colonnade still standing as of yore,
the eminent Jack Sheppard condescended to
regale himself, and where, now, two old
bachelor brothers in broad hats (who are
whispered in the Mint to have made a compact
long ago that if either should ever
marry, he must forfeit his share of the joint
property) still keep a sequestered tavern, and
sit o' nights smoking pipes in the bar, among
ancient bottles and glasses, as our eyes behold
them.

How goes the night now? Saint George
of Southwark answers with twelve blows upon
his bell. Parker, good night, for Williams is
already waiting over in the region of Ratcliffe
Highway, to show the houses where the
sailors dance.

I should like to know where Inspector Field
was born. In Ratcliffe Highway, I would have
answered with confidence, but for his being
equally at home wherever we go. He does not
trouble his head as I do, about the river at
night. He does not care for its creeping, black
and silent, on our right there, rushing through
sluice gates, lapping at piles and posts and
iron rings, hiding strange things in its mud,
running away with suicides and accidentally
drowned bodies faster than midnight funeral
should, and acquiring such various experience
between its cradle and its grave. It has
no mystery for him. Is there not the Thames
Police!

Accordingly, Williams lead the way. We
are a little late, for some of the houses are
already closing. No matter. You show us
plenty. All the landlords know Inspector
Field. All pass him, freely and good-humouredly,
wheresoever he wants to go. So
thoroughly are all these houses open to him
and our local guide, that, granting that sailors
must be entertained in their own way—as I
suppose they must, and have a right to be—
I hardly know how such places could be
better regulated. Not that I call the company
very select, or the dancing very graceful—
even so graceful as that of the German Sugar
Bakers, whose assembly, by the Minories, we
stopped to visit—but there is watchful maintenance
of order in every house, and swift
expulsion where need is. Even in the midst
of drunkenness, both of the lethargic kind
and the lively, there is sharp landlord supervision,
and pockets are in less peril than out
of doors. These houses show, singularly, how
much of the picturesque and romantic there
truly is in the sailor, requiring to be especially
addressed. All the songs (sung in a hailstorm
of halfpence, which are pitched at the singer
without the least tenderness for the time or
tune—mostly from great rolls of copper
carried for the purpose—and which he occasionally
dodges like shot as they fly near his
head) are of the sentimental sea sort. All the
rooms are decorated with nautical subjects.
Wrecks, engagements, ships on fire, ships
passing lighthouses on iron-bound coasts,
ships blowing up, ships going down, ships
running ashore, men lying out upon the main
yard in a gale of wind, sailors and ships in
every variety of peril, constitute the illustrations
of fact. Nothing can be done in the
fanciful way, without a thumping boy upon
a scaly dolphin.

How goes the night now? Past one.
Black and Green are waiting in Whitechapel
to unveil the mysteries of Wentworth Street.
Williams, the best of friends must part
Adieu!

Are not Black and Green ready at the
appointed place? O yes! They glide out of
shadow as we stop. Imperturbable Black
opens the cab-door; Imperturbable Green
takes a mental note of the driver. Both
Green and Black then open, each his flaming
eye, and marshal us the way that we are
going.

The lodging-house we want, is hidden in a
maze of streets and courts. It is fast shut.
We knock at the door, and stand hushed
looking up for a light at one or other of the
begrimed old lattice windows in its ugly front
when another constable comes up—supposes
that we want " to see the school." Detective
Serjeant meanwhile has got over a rail, opened
a gate, dropped down an area, overcome some
other little obstacles, and tapped at a window.
Now returns. The landlord will send a
deputy immediately.

Deputy is heard to stumble out of bed.
Deputy lights a candle, draws back a bolt or
two, and appears at the door. Deputy is a
shivering shirt and trousers by no means
clean, a yawning face, a shock head much
confused externally and internally. We want
to look for some one. You may go up with
the light, and take 'em all, if you like, says
Deputy, resigning it, and sitting down upon
a bench in the kitchen with his ten fingers
sleepily twisting in his hair.

Halloa here! Now then! Show yourselves.
That 'll do. It's not you. Don't disturb
yourself any more! So on, through a labyrinth
of airless rooms, each man responding,
like a wild beast, to the keeper who has tamed
him, and who goes into his cage. What,
you haven't found him, then? says Deputy,
when we came down. A woman mysteriously
sitting up all night in the dark by the
smouldering ashes of the kitchen fire, says it's
only tramps and cadgers here; it's gonophs
over the way. A man, mysteriously walking
about the kitchen all night in the dark, bids
her hold her tongue. We come out. Deputy
fastens the door and goes to bed again.

Black and Green, you know Bark, lodging-house
keeper and receiver of stolen goods ?
—O yes, Inspector Field.—Go to Bark's
next.

Bark sleeps in an inner wooden hutch, near
his street-door. As we parley on the step
with Bark's Deputy, Bark growls in his bed.
We enter, and Bark flies out of bed. Bark is
a red villain and a wrathful, with a sanguine
throat that looks very much as if it were