dow in this
little cot, not over three yards square, in "Seed's Yard," one of
those dark corners into which decent poverty is so often found now,
creeping unwillingly away from the public eye, in the hope of
weathering the storm of adversity, in penurious independence. The
old woman never would accept relief from the parish, although the
whole family had been out of work for many months. One of the
daughters, a clean, intelligent-looking young woman, about eighteen,
sat at the table, eating a little bread and treacle to a cup of
light-coloured tea, when we went in; but she blushed, and left off
until we had gone--which was not long after. It felt almost like
sacrilege to peer thus into the privacies of such people; but I hope
they did not feel as if it had been done offensively. We called next
at the cottage of a hand-loom weaver--a poor trade now in the best
of times--a very poor trade--since the days when tattered old "Jem
Ceawp" sung his pathetic song of "Jone o' Greenfeelt"--

"Aw'm a poor cotton weighver, as ony one knows;
We'n no meight i'th heawse, an' we'n worn eawt er clothes;
We'n live't upo nettles, while nettles were good;
An' Wayterloo porritch is th' most of er food;
This clemmin' and starvin',
Wi' never a farthin'--
It's enough to drive ony mon mad."

This family was four in number--man, wife, and two children. They
had always lived near to the ground, for the husband's earnings at
the loom were seldom more than 7s. for a full week. The wife told us
that they were not receiving any relief, for she said that when her
husband "had bin eawt o' wark a good while he turn't his hond to
shaving;" and in this way the ingenious struggling fellow had
scraped a thin living for them during many months. "But," said she,
" it brings varra little in, we hev to trust so much. He shaves four
on 'em for a haw-penny, an' there's a deal on 'em connot pay that.
Yo know, they're badly off--(the woman seemed to think her
circumstances rather above the common kind); an' then," continued
she, "when they'n run up a shot for three-hawpence or twopence or
so, they cannot pay it o' no shap, an' so they stoppen away fro th'
shop. They cannot for shame come, that's heaw it is; so we lose'n
their custom till sich times as summat turns up at they can raise a
trifle to pay up wi'. . . . He has nobbut one razzor, but it'll be
like to do." Hearken this, oh, ye spruce Figaros of the city, who
trim the clean, crisp whiskers of the well-t