Touching the boys, those juveniles were
relegated to a plantation of troughs by
themselves, where they were plunging and tumbling
about in the usual manner of town-nursed
Bedouins. I learnt that the institution—to
use a familiar expression—rather fought shy of
boys. Boys are inclined to be troublesome;
and, whenever it is practicable, they are
sent to the ragged school dormitories, where,
my guide said, "they make them go to school
before they go to bed, which they don't like
at all." More than this, some parents, to
save themselves the trouble of providing
supper and bedding for their children, will
send one or more of them to the Refuge;
and, where space is so vitally valuable, the
introduction of even one interloper is a thing
to be carefully prevented.

The Refuge is open after five in the evening,
and a porter is on duty all night for the
admission of urgent cases. The fires and gas are
also kept burning throughout the night, and
a male and female superintendent sit up, in
case of need. Those who have been in the
Refuge on Saturday night, have the privilege
of remaining in the institution during the
whole of Sunday. They have an extra ration
of bread and three ounces of cheese, and
divine service is performed in the morning
and afternoon. There are many Sabbaths
kept in London: the Vinegar Sabbath, the
Velvet and Satin Sabbath, the Red Hot
Poker Sabbath, the carriage-and-pair
Sabbath, the gloomily-lazy Sabbath, the pipe-
and-pot Sabbath; but I doubt if any can equal
the Sabbath passed in this wretched Play-
house Yard, as a true Sabbath of rest, and
peace, and mercy.

We went up, after this, to the women's
wards. The arrangements were identical
with those of the men; save, that one room,
is devoted to women with families, where
the partitions between the troughs had been
taken away that the children might lie with
their mothers. We passed between the ranges
of bed-places; noticing that the same mournful,
weary, wakeful silence, was almost invariable,
though not, I was told, compulsory. The
only prohibition—and safety requires this—is
against smoking. Now and then, a gaunt girl
with her black hair hanging about her face
would rise up in her bed to stare at us; now
and then, some tattered form amongst those
who were sitting there till the ward below
was ready for their reception, would rise
from the bench and drop us a curtsey; but
the general stillness was pervading and
unvarying. A comely matron bustled about
noiselessly with her assistant; who was a
strange figure among all these rags; being
a pretty girl in ringlets and ribbons. One
seemed to have forgotten, here, that such
a being could be in existence. I spoke
to some of the women on the benches. It
was the same old story. Needle-work
at miserable prices, inability to pay the
two-penny rent of a lodging, no friends,
utter destitution; this, or death. There
were a few—and this class I heard was
daily increasing—who were the wives of
soldiers in the Militia, or of men in the
Land Transport and Army Works Corps.
Their husbands had been ordered away;
they had no claim upon the regular
Military Relief Association, they had received
no portion of their husband's pay-—and
they were houseless and hungry.

I stopped long to look down into the
room where the women and children were.
There they lay, God help them! head to
heel, transversely, anyhow for warmth; nestling,
crouching under the coverlets; at times
feebly wailing. Looking down upon this
solemn, silent, awful scene made you shudder;
made you question by what right you
were standing up, warm, prosperous, well-
fed, well-clad, with these destitute creatures,
your brothers and sisters, who had no better
food and lodging than this? But for the
absence of marble floors and tanks, the place
might be some kennel for hounds; but for
the rags and the eyes, these might be sheep
in the pens in Smithfield Market.

I went down-stairs at last; for there was
no more to see. Conversing further with
the secretary, I gleaned that the average
number of destitute persons admitted nightly
is five hundred and fifty; but that as many
as six hundred have been accommodated.
Last year—when the asylum was open from
the fifteenth of January, until (owing to
the long duration of the inclement weather)
the tenth of April—four thousand two hundred
and eighty-nine individuals were
admitted, thirty-six thousand eight hundred and
fifteen night's lodgings afforded, and one
hundred and eight thousand two hundred and
fifty-seven rations of bread distributed.
Looking at the balance-sheet of the society,
I found the total expense of the asylum
(exclusive of rent), was less than one thousand
pounds.

A thousand pounds! we blow it away in
gunpowder; we spend it upon diplomatic
fool's caps; we give it every month in the
year to right honourable noblemen for doing
nothing, or for spoiling what ordinary men
of business would do better. A thousand
pounds! It would not pay a deputy sergeant
at arms; it would scarcely be a retiring
pension for an assistant prothonotary. A
thousand pounds! Deputy-chaff-wax would
have spurned it, if offered as compensation
for loss of office. A thousand pounds! the
sum jarred upon my ear, as I walked back
through Smithfield. At least, for their ten
hundred pounds, the Society for Sheltering
the Houseless save some hundreds of human,
lives a-year.

I abide by the assertion, that men and
women die nightly in our golden streets,
because they have no bread to put into their
miserable mouths, no roofs to shelter their
wretched heads. It is no less a God-known,