r plan is to work hard, but not always. They
seldom exceed four days of labour in the week. On Sunday the masters
begin to drink; for the apprentices there is dog-fighting without any
stint.

On Monday and Tuesday the whole population of Wodgate is drunk; of
all stations, ages, and sexes, even babes who should be at the
breast, for they are drammed with Godfrey's cordial. Here is
relaxation, excitement; if less vice otherwise than might be at first
anticipated, we must remember that excesses are checked by poverty of
blood and constant exhaustion. Scanty food and hard labour are in
their way, if not exactly moralists, a tolerably good police.

There are no others at Wodgate to preach or to control. It is not
that the people are immoral, for immorality implies some forethought;
or ignorant, for ignorance is relative; but they are animals,
unconscious, their minds a blank, and their worst actions only the
impulse of a gross or savage instinct. There are many in this town
who are ignorant of their very names; very few who can spell them.

It is rare that you meet with a young person who knows his own age;
rarer to find the boy who has seen a book, or the girl who has seen a
flower. Ask them the name of their Sovereign, and they will give you
an unmeaning stare; ask them the name of their religion, and they
will laugh; who rules them on earth, or who can save them in Heaven,
are alike mysteries to them.

Such was the population with whom Morley was about to mingle.
Wodgate had the appearance of a vast squalid suburb. As you
advanced, leaving behind you long lines of little dingy tenements,
with infants lying about the road, you expected every moment to
emerge into some streets, and encounter buildings bearing some
correspondence, in their size and comfort, to the considerable
population swarming and busied around you.

Nothing of the kind. There were no public buildings of any sort; no
churches, chapels, town hall, institute, theatre; and the principal
streets in the heart of the town in which were situate the coarse and
grimy shops, though formed by houses of a greater elevation than the
preceding, were equally narrow, and, if possible, more dirty.

At every fourth or fifth house, alleys, seldom above a yard wide, and
streaming with filth, opened out of the street. T