he way, in Mr. Booth's instructive
map.) It is about a quarter of a mile long and perfectly straight. It is
intersected at one point by another street, and is composed of tall dark
houses, with flat fronts, perhaps six or seven stories in height. It is
generally fairly silent and empty, and is inhabited by the most
characteristic members of the Hackney Wick community--quiet, white-faced
men, lean women, draggled and sharp-tongued, and countless
over-intelligent children--all of the class that seldom remain long
anywhere--all of the material out of which the real criminal is
developed. No booths or stalls ever stand here; only, on Saturday
nights, there is echoed here, as in a stone-lined pit, the cries and the
wheel-noises from the busy thoroughfare a hundred yards away round the
corner. The road, as a whole, bears an aspect of desperate and fierce
dignity; there is never here the glimpse of a garden or of flowers, as
in Mortimer Road, a stone's throw away. There is nothing whatever except
the tall, flat houses, the pavements, the lampposts, the grimy
thoroughfare and the silence. The sensation of the visitor is that
anything might happen here, and that no one would be the wiser. There is
an air of horrible discretion about these houses.

* * * * *

Mrs. Partington was--indeed is (for I went to see her not two months
ago)--of a perfectly defined type. She must have been a handsome factory
girl--dark, slender, and perfectly able to take care of herself, with
thin, muscular arms, generally visible up to the elbow, hard hands, a
quantity of rather untidy hair--with the tongue of a venomous orator and
any amount of very inferior sentiment, patriotic and domestic. She has
become a lean, middle-aged woman, very upright and very strong, without
any sentiment at all, but with a great deal of very practical human
experience to take its place. She has no illusions about either this
world or the next; she has borne nine children, of which three survive;
and her husband is almost uninterruptedly out of work. However, they are
prosperous (for Turner Road), and have managed, so far, to keep their
home together.

The sunset was framed in a glow of smoky glory at the end of the street
down which Mrs. Partington was staring, resembling a rather angry
search-light turned on from the gates of heaven. The street was still
quiet; but already from the direction of the Board-school came thin and
shrill cries