the utmost of his expectation. After this, who
could refuse faith in the live pig and silver
snuff-box? Golden Lane blends charity with
pleasure. If a tale of human suffering could
prompt a man to dance, let him come forward
and dance, like a man, on Tuesday next at the
Hit or Miss beershop, for the benefit of
"Thomas Tibbs, alias Deaf One, who has lost
is license;" or on Thursday, for the benefit of
Emma Hill and Sarah Bunney, who were
pithily said to be "in trouble;" or, if suffering
begets a love of song, Saturday next, at the
same house, there will be singing for all who
sympathise with Jerry Allen, better known as
Swivel. He states, without punctuation, and
with all the incoherence of real trouble, that
"having been out of plaice for sum time his
landlord is going to distress him of his home
if some asistans cannot be obtaned through
the median of this trial he hopes to retain it
the convivial meetin will be under the direction
of Thomas Sculley and Ned the Nummer
and the cheer will be taken at eight o'clock."

If an inhabitant of that neighbourhood
desired to be shaved—the desire was not
common there, if I might judge from the faces I
met—it would be done with ease for him in
Golden Lane at the charge of one halfpenny;
a red and blue pole stands forth to proclaim it.
Did he want his hair cut? Hear Mr. Frizz,
his verses:—

      "I cut you hair, and brus it too,
       A halpenny is all i chardge to you."

Was he scrupulous about his personal appearance?
Hear Mr. Frizz, again:—

       "To cleen you shoos; brus coat and hat,
        A halpenny is all i chardge for that."

The rag-shop keeper illustrated his lesson
upon wasting nothing, with a picture of
plum-pudding, and of ribs of beef. The
chimney-sweep—whose house had a bright
brass knocker, and is quite the cleanest in the
lane—was a patron of both these fine arts; he
spoke both by poetry and painting. He it
was who,

                        " ——by desire,
       Extinguises chimleys when on fire,"

as his picture witnessed, in which a man
and a boy, in a very well-paved, but deserted
street, were hastening to a tremendous fire in
the chimney of number seven. There was
boldness in his conception of the relative sizes of
man, boy, and house: the man and boy, being
the heroes of the scene, were represented in a
massive and colossal way; the perspective of
the back-ground was pre-Raphaelite. With
the name of a modern pre-Raphaelite against
its number in the catalogue, this picture, I
think, would equal some that I have seen
hung in Trafalgar Square, and would fetch (I
dare say) a mint of money.

Sun Court. Premature twilight came upon
me as I passed under the roofed way into Sun
Court; with its inky pools; its rag-stuffed
windows; its four miserable bean-stalks,
whose leaves ran up, hunting for the sky, from
that high window-sill; its long rows of yellow
stockings and unmended shirts stretched out
upon a pole from a garret window over me.
They were all damp, cold, and cheerless.
Could they speak they would all swear that
never could a blessed ray fall, slant or
perpendicular, into Sun Court, to produce a
shadow of justification for its name.

Sun Court! Gloom Court, Filth Court,
Cholera Court; its pavement never knew the
taste of sun. If those rills and puddles in
between the stones, whose odour hurt my
nostrils, were not dried up in the summer
weather, could I think that they were ever
dry? I might have heard the truth of them
from a child, or man (I don't know which), who
—in the cast-off trousers of a giant held to him
by one brace, and tucked up to his knees—was
amusing himself by stamping in the biggest
and the foulest pool until its contents flew
against doors and windows right and left;
but what intelligible answer to a question could
I have got from him? I might as well have
catechised his friend the hungry-looking hen,
whose skin was bare in many places; and who,
since her eyes were always bent upon the sickly
ground, must have a very bad opinion of this
world of ours. Here was another court; and
there, another beyond that. Two or three
branching out of them; and all alike—all
with rills and puddles, heaps of oyster-shells
and putrid cabbage-leaves scattered in
defiance of boards at every corner, threatening
with penalties, in the name of the church-
wardens and in pursuance of acts of Parliament,
any one who should deposit any nuisance
upon any part of those roadways. Each
court had its own rotten water-butt and single
dust-hole, &c., for general use—while in all
the open doors and windows swarmed with
men, women, and children, gasping after air.

Presently I came to something different. A
place, not less, but rather more bestrewn
with oyster-shells, and cabbage-leaves; not
less watered with filthy puddles. A square—
a yard, of which I could not leam the name
—belonging to a class. In Belgrave Square
dwell lords and ladies; in this square dwell
costermongers only. Their wares of every
kind—shell-fish, or fruit, or vegetables, or the
traces of the refuse of these—were at every
door. Here was to be heard such a braying
of donkeys! Some costermongers with hand-
barrows, and some with donkey carts were,
with replenished stores, preparing to go forth.
In one barrow there was a brown mass of
confectionary, like a Christmas pudding, decked
out with flags of blue and yellow calico.
At one halfpenny a slice, a miserable creature
was prepared to vend Jamaica pine-apples.

The houses had all been whitewashed
once, although I think not within the memory
of anybody here. Every door was opened back
into the single ground-floor room, where man,
wife, children, donkey, and vegetables, were at