The days my husband comes home he holds the baby, or they all play in the garden. Most days he only comes home to a tea dinner; by that time I have put the children to sleep, and we have the evening to ourselves."

On the table was a basket of lemon-peel spread on vine-leaves. I asked what it was for. She replied, "My husband is often wakeful at nights, and I have read of this perfume being very good against sleeplessness and agues. I make rose-water in summer to sprinkle upon the leaves; it has a very good effect.”

The babies looked like Chantrey's "Sleeping Children" in Lichfield Cathedral. I said so. She seemed pleased, and said, "The beauty of infants is best known to the poor; they are like works of art for them; they see ideal beauty in their smile. My ivory boy," said she, kissing the infant's white shoulder as we turned to leave them sleeping.

I had scarcely time to investigate the kitchen, but I saw there were no black saucepans, but only shiny tin and (mended) copper, which were not made dirty on the close stove; a handle formed like the neck. and head of a swan was attached to a large crook, which hung on a swinging crane over the round opening of the fire. Mrs. B. called it "the handmaiden." She used it to tilt the crock and heavy kettle (only used on washing days) so as not to soil her hands. The sink was of enamelled slate. Most

of the cooking vessels were of earthenware, fireproof and otherwise, and many pieces of crockery were of great elegance.

"All second-hand, you see," said she, laughing. "We often go prowling about in the way of temptation. We say we do it to strengthen our character, to practise ourselves in resistance!"

The kitchen was so light, and there was so much greenery of the garden visible, that it seemed more like a greenhouse than a kitchen. "Like cookery done in a bower," I said to her.

"We house our plants here in winter," she returned; "otherwise they would not be fine enough for us to be proud of. Besides, my husband uses them in his work in winter as well as in summer."

Mr. Newbroom called me to the train. I was compelled to fly.

"It is no small saving to pay nothing for one's drink."-SIR FRANCIS BACON.

ROVIDED with an order, I went to view these model dwellings, the background to the lives of a growing class of poor a

people who find ease in a certain routine

of which the main lines are laid down for them, and who feel a capacity to conform to certain rules, or limitations of their liberty. This order of mind turned formerly to the conventual life; and among the poor to service, or if young and strong to military service. A class habituated in childhood to a school routine finds it difficult to turn the unused will to the activity of shaping the ends; some from languor of the mind, some from its being absorbed in other cares for such these buildings are peculiarly adapted.

The appearance of these dwellings is that of a clean, wide, quiet street of houses of light-brown brick with white string-courses; not ornamental, yet by no means ugly; with no barrel-organs, and no apparent street trade, beyond the baker's young man with his basket at his back threading his way among the perambulators.

The asphalted street has young plane trees planted in a row down its centre, well protected by iron fences. The closed iron gates exclude wheeled traffic, except on necessity, for the street is no thoroughfare; so the tidy, well-shod children can play about in safety, and the boys can play "rounders " in the open spaces beyond the houses, where the windows are in no danger from their missiles. My first impression of this charity was as a step towards the heavenly kingdom, with the boys and girls playing in the streets thereof.

They attend a free school, or they are free to attend any school, I could not hear which, amid the din of Saturday holiday, with the hubbub of Saturday morning's cleaning going on all round.

The street lies north and south, and being near the Thames Embankment, a strong current runs through its length of 330 yards.

The buildings are in twenty-six blocks, marked A to Z: they contain, on one side of the road, accommodation for sixteen families on four floors;

X

on the other side, for twenty families on five floors. Each floor, or flat, has ten rooms.

One side of the street is troubled with smoky chimneys during westerly winds, but the other ills of life generally seem greatly modified here; and that the breeze is not blighting is shown by the clematis and other climbers at the windows, as well as the auriculas in full flower on the 10th of April.

Block A, I to 20, is a specimen of all. First comes the laundry, a room where the washing is done for four families. No garments may be washed elsewhere, nor may the tenants use the laundries for washing any clothing but their own, nor hang anything out to dry; the strong current dries the linen within the laundry itself.

The water is heated in the copper, a large metal funnel conveying both smoke and steam to the chimneys. (Query: Does not this blast cause a rapid consumption of coal in the grates; as driving the smoke and steam out of the same engine funnel at once increases the engine-power and the consumption of the fuel?)

The clothing looked comfortable and respectable, though I thought some of the sheets too fine and thin to be as serviceable as they should be.

(How easy it would be to utilize the water from steam mills for baths and laundries, as was done at the steam corn mills at Bideford, and other country towns, many years ago!)