owed face; but there was
a cheerful ring in his voice which told of a hopeful spirit within
him still. The old man's nostrils were dusty with snuff, and his
poor garments hung about his shrunken form in the careless ease
which is common to the tailor's shopboard. I could not help admiring
the brave old wrinkled workman as he stood in the doorway talking
about his secondhand trade, whilst the gusty wind fondled about in
his thin gray hair. I took a friendly pinch from his little wooden
box at parting, and left him to go on struggling with his
troublesome family to "keep above the flood," by translating old
clothes into new. We called at some other houses, where the features
of life were so much the same that it is not necessary to say more
than that the inhabitants were all workless, or nearly so, and all
living upon the charitable provision which is the only thin plank
between so many people and death, just now. In one house, where the
furniture had been sold, the poor souls had brought a great stone
into the place, and this was their only seat. In Cunliffe Street, we
passed the cottage of a boilermaker, whom I had heard of before. His
family was four in number. This was one of those cases of wholesome
pride in which the family had struggled with extreme penury, seeking
for work in vain, but never asking for charity, until their own poor
neighbours were at last so moved with pity for their condition, that
they drew the attention of the Relief Committee to it. The man
accepted relief for one week, but after that, he declined receiving
it any longer, because he had met with a promise of employment. But
the promise failed him when the time came. The employer, who had
promised, was himself disappointed of the expected work. After this;
the boilermaker's family was compelled to fall back upon the Relief
Committee's allowance. He who has never gone hungry about the world,
with a strong love of independence in his heart, seeking eagerly for
work from day to day, and coming home night after night to a
foodless, fireless house, and a starving family, disappointed and
desponding, with the gloom of destitution deepening around him, can
never fully realise what the feelings of such a man may be from
anything that mere words can tell.

In Park Road, we called at the house of a hand-loom weaver. I
learnt, before we went in, that two families lived here, numbering
together eight persons; and, though it was well known to the
committe