any lodging-house for more than twenty-four hours. Whatever may be their malady, if they still remain invalid after that time, the workhouse authorities are communicated with, and the objectionable person carried away. Nor is it likely that the owner of a lodging-house would make any demur to such an arrangement, since he is well aware that with his class of customers it is never anything better than from hand to mouth,' and if a man cannot get about to pick up his living there is small chance of his landlord getting his rent. It would not be the dread of contagion alone that would prevent poor fever-stricken wretches being permitted to lie with the healthy. And before I can quote a case in point, I must amend the statement already made that the lodging-house of the Lint-street kind is the commonest of all. There is still a more dismal depth to which human beings may descend. I cannot say if they may be found in any other part of the metropolis; but in the vicinity of Golden-lane, St. Luke's, are, or until recently were, to be found what are known as 'hot-water houses' or cooking-shops. The owners of these places do not pretend to take in lodgers, but for a penny or so a day applicants are permitted to shelter there, and use the cooking utensils. Sometimes, however, under the plea, if it came to police-questioning, that they were the house-owner's personal friends, they stayed all night, lying in rows on the floors of the rooms with their arms under their heads for a pillow. Mr. William Orsman, the well-known missionary of the district, on one occasion was in the dead of night sent for to administer dying consolation to a sick child at one of these awful places; and there he found the poor little creature, a

girl of six or eight years old, in the mortal stage of scarlet-fever, lying on the ground with fifteen other lodgers, adult and juvenile, and who doubtless went their way next morning with their rags laden with the deadly contagion, sowing it broadcast.

As already stated, however, as far as is possible provision is made against such imminent risk in Lint-street. Indeed, to judge from the special feature which is made in the announcements of the lodging-house keepers, there is amongst them a disposition towards cleanliness beyond what might be expected. To be sure, much cannot be expected 'at the price,' which is fixed at that of the poor man's pot of beerfourpence being the almost invariable charge. For this small sum, paid in advance to the 'deputy' who sits in his hutch within the doorway, a lodger may command the establishment to the extent of its means. There may possibly be-nay, there is no use in mincing the matter, there are a few outsiders in the lodginghouse line in Lint-street, who are unprincipled enough to endeavour to draw to their establishments an unfair share of business by reducing the sum to threepence; boldly putting out handbills to the effect that at that reduced tariff every comfort of home' is obtainable, including the use of the frying-pan or gridiron, and the shoe-brushes in the morning for such as come provided with blacking.' Small matters make up the sum-total of the mighty world. The use of the shoe-brushes' may, at first sight, appear an insignificant item, and one not very likely to affect such tatterdemalions who seek Lint-street housing, but the smallest consideration will show that there are a large number who would appreciate the

boon at its value. The 'clean though poor' cadger of the out-o'work-mechanic style of get-up would not overlook such a manifest advantage; neither would the dejected broken-down clerk, who, dumb-stricken in despair, stands in the same suit of threadbare black as he wore when it was his daily custom to mount an officestool, the same well-brushed but shockingly bad hat, the same spotless cuffs and shirt-front. Nay, in order that there may be no possibility of mistake as to what was his respectable avocation before penury, coming along at ever so many knots an hour, overtook him, and swept him with simoom velocity out of house and home and situation, he still carries his office-pen behind his ear. He mutely submits to the public, as he stands meekly on the edge of the pavement, half a quire of soiled note-paper, a stick of sealing-wax, and two or three leadpencils; but he has no idea of parting with these precious goods. Indeed, should a person show himself to be so outrageously hard-hearted as to require a pen'orth for his penny, the poor clerk, in a tremulous voice, will admit that the pencils are very poor ones, and he is afraid, kind gentleman, not worth carrying away. But, benevolent reader, waste not a sigh on this most melancholy of beggars. not always thus cast down. His business is a good one; and after his day's work is done, he may any night be found, in an easy jacket and smoking-cap, 'in the chair' at the sing-song' held at the Flinder and Parasite, where he is regarded as one of the merriest old souls in creation.

He is

To return, however, to Lintstreet. It is night-time there. Now that the days are shortening, the birds return earlier to roost.

With the setting in of twilight, the narrow street becomes more and more alive. They do not come boldly trooping home, these cadgers and tramps, and persons who can give no more definite account of themselves than that they 'pick up' a living; that would be doing violence to their nature. They come sneaking in by every available side-way and back-way; so that, as unexpectedly as though they had arrived there up the sink-holes, you find them swarming on every side of you. They bring, excepting their professional rags, no evidence of poverty along with them. The chandler's shops in the neighbourhood do a thriving trade: prime rashers off the gammon, with plenty of fresh eggs, being in great demand, not to mention the best of butter and the newest of bread and the primest of old Cheshire cheese. They are dainty, these brazenfaced trepassers and poachers on the domains of benevolence.

'It is all very well to call a fellow an idle beggar,' once said to me an old gentleman who for upwards of forty years had followed begging as a profession; 'but I should just like them as can see nothing but laziness in it to take a turn at it and convince themselves. I don't mean for once in a way; but to go regularly to work at it, in a manner of speaking, as I do.' (He was attached to the street-chanting branch of the business.) 'Up one street and down another, with your feet splashing in the mud, and the perishing cold wind finding its way in at every hole in your coat and trousers; creeping along in the middle of the road from, say, ten in the morning till four or five in the afternoon, and perhaps in a neighbourhood where it isn't safe to put up for an hour and get a comfortable glass of something

the whole time. Why, it's a precious sight harder work than being a bricklayer's labourer, for all the fuss that is made about it.' 'And it pays a great deal better,' I remarked.

'Well, of course it do,' was the old rascal's ingenuous reply; 'else you wouldn't find so many being such jolly fools as to work at it.'

The common lodging - house kitchen is the only sitting-room' provided for the lodgers, no matter their number, age, or sex. Gray old grandfathers and grandmothers, matronly women with their half-dozen little children, hulking ruffians of the Sikes breed, bouncing brawny-armed damsels, lithe - limbed nimble young prigs-all are accommodated as one happy family. The furniture of the kitchen is neither elaborate nor costly. Only that it is shockingly dirty instead of scrupulously clean, it has something of the aspect of a barrack dining-room, with its long length of deal tables and its forms to match. The only other accommodation is an enormous 'locker,' a sort of cupboard fitted with pigeonholes and made fast with a strong lock, of which the 'deputy' of the house commands the key. It is thoroughly understood, indeed. none but a 'greenhorn' would dream of raising the question, that whenever a Lint-street lodger sees, or can contrive, an opportunity for appropriating his neighbour's goods, he does so without the slightest compunction. He will not even keep his itching fingers off the bedclothing of the establishment, and it is quite a common practice for the proprietors to have their sheets and rugs stamped, in letters as broad as the palm: "Stop thief or 'Stop him! This was stole from Flannigan's !' The lodging-house keeper is not responsible for a lodger's goods.

You may leave what you think fit with the 'deputy' before you go up to bed,—your boots, your cap, your coat, any portable property you may happen to have in your possession, and you may rely on having them safely taken care of, and returned to you the following morning. With the above precautions taken, and with the remainder of his attire made into a neat bundle and laid pillow-wise under a lodger's head, he may close his eyes with some sense of security.

But the most remarkable feature of the Lint-street houses is the enormous fire that is kept burning summer and winter. Passing down the street at night-time, when the street-doors are open, the capacious kitchen may be seen at the end of the gloomy passage, glowing ruddy in the firelight, and adding not a little to the ruffianly aspect of the questionable characters clustered about it. But the best time for taking a peep at a Lint-street kitchen is when the earliest arrivals (and they, as a rule, are those whose circumstances are easy, inasmuch as they do not feel compelled to 'work' after early evening) come home, bringing with them their supper to be cooked. With thirty or forty lodgers trooping in in the space of half an hour, and each one sharpset for his evening meal, and with only one fire available for the cooking purposes, it may be easily imagined that the grate which contains it must be a capacious one-not unfrequently it extends to a length of five or six feet, with a breadth corresponding. Those, however, who have suppers to prepare are not fastidious. There is but one great frying-pan, and in this are deposited at one time chops, steaks, kidneys, rashers of bacon, and sausages; the result of this promiscuous mingling of

meats being found to give a pleasant pungency to the gravy, which is fairly divided according to each depositor's substantial contribution. It is a stirring spectacle, when the cooking is at its height, to contemplate the tattered, dirtyfaced, hungry mob, each with a plate hugged to his breast, and a knife in his hand, keeping a vigilant eye on his particular morsel frizzling in the pan, lest some larcenous fork should be presently stuck in it for its covert abstraction. On account of a frequent indulgence in this playful practice, it is deemed prudent to constitute the kitchen helper' master of the cooking ceremonies. This functionary is commonly possessed of muscular qualifications equal to the settlement of any serious disagreement that may take place between two or more lodgers; and moreover, as custodian of the frying-pan, he is armed with an iron spit, long and strong enough to impale an offender; but it is as much as he can do to maintain order amongst his clients until he is prepared faithfully to render each man his own. The difficulty arises from the process of cooking altering the complexion of the pieces of meat in the pan, and affecting the question of identity. The knowing birds of the dingy brood, however, are equal to the emergency. That's mine with the notch cut in the fat!' 'That's mine with the cross on it!' 'Drop that now, Larry! Yours is a littler bit, and I can swear to mine from its having a pin stuck in it!' But after all there is more of horse-play than hot blood and bad temper displayed, and in a short time no

other sound is heard but the clatter of steel against earthenware, and the champing of voracious jaws.

It is not until the general supper has been disposed of that what may be called the tag-rag and bobtail make their appearance the street singers and players on musical instruments, the crossing-sweepers, the pennypaper hawkers, the cigar-light sellers, and the bona-fide 'tramps,' bound on a long journey and making this their halting-place for the night. It is not until ten or eleven o'clock, when the kitchen is full and the outer door is closed, that the fun begins: the song-singing, the story-telling, and the ordinary enjoyments of a common lodging-house fireside. No doubt all that can be done is done to keep such a dangerous assemblage in something like order, but to make them observe decency and decorum is simply impossible. This is terribly bad for the young folk, for the mere boys and girls who accompany their parents. As for

the grown-up ruffianism, it is already as bad as bad can be, and no amount of evil steeping can increase the intensity of its ingrain dye; but for the children it is shocking. And by and by, the sexes dividing, the merry crews troop off to bed-the little boys with the grown men, and the little girls with the grown women ; and in the dormitories the pretty stories begun in the kitchen will be completed, until, all of them worn out with uproarious laughter and wicked mirth, snoring takes the place of tale-telling; and Lintstreet, the ugliest of the ugly, is asleep.