irty feet by fourteen, and in each bed two
and sometimes three persons are placed. When the landlord is doing a
good business, he puts three lodgers in each bed. Seventy-five sleepers
in that confined space! For such accommodation the charge is six cents
per night. And this is quite a respectable lodging-house. There are
four-cent lodging-houses, where there is only straw without any
covering; and there are three-cent houses, where there is no straw even,
but only bare boards rotting beneath a crustation of dirt and filth,
which is never washed off.

The frequenters of these places are professed beggars; and although
their sufferings are at times great, they must not be classed with the
deserving poor. You will see the latter lingering at the doors of
work-houses. I have seen some two hundred of them on a winter's evening,
when the frost has sharply bound up the lakes in the parks and the
fountains in Trafalgar Square, shivering in semi-nudity on the bare and
bitter pavement, waiting for admission. The houses of the rich--where
lap-dogs were fed on hot and savory steaks, or even on daintier
poultry--were standing around, and the heavens were as brass to the
wails of the wretched crowd. I have been fairly staggered at such
sights. I remember that one occasion a man dropped dead in the street
where I was, while on his way to the workhouse, and it was found upon
inquiry that he was really starved to death.

They sit and lie before the work-houses, at such times, huddled almost
upon one another, and forming such groups of hungry, squalid, and
degraded human beings, as no painter would venture to transfer from life
to canvas. Of the number that apply for admission, one half will be
rejected, who must shelter themselves under the dry arches of the
bridges, or creep into hidden doorways, up narrow alleys, where the
police are not likely to find them. For if found, they would be seized
and taken before a magistrate, to be punished for being homeless and
without food. Many of them do not dread this punishment, but will seek
to deserve it by more criminal conditions than enforced indigence and
helpless hunger. They will break street-lamps and tradesmen's windows,
to get a month's imprisonment, with food, and rest, and shelter for that
period. Others, and the majority, have a prouder spirit. They will
escape a prison, with the help of God. Their number is very great. There
are fifty thousand, it is said, in London, who rise every