alf to six, five, four-and-a-half, and
finally is knocked down at four. Often a prime-looking joint will go as
low as twopence a pound, and the smaller stuff is practically given away
when half-past twelve is striking.

It is the same with the other shops--greengrocery, fish, and fruit. All
is, so far as possible, cleared out before closing time, and only enough
is held in reserve to supply that large army of Sunday morning shoppers
who are unable to shop on Saturday night owing to Bill's festivities.

* * * * *

That is one worker's night. But there are others. There are those
workers whose nights are not domestic, and who live in the common
lodging-houses and shelters which are to be found in every district in
London. There are two off Mayfair. There are any number round Belgravia.
Seven Dials, of course, is full of them, for there lodge the Covent
Garden porters and other early birds. In these houses you will find
members of all-night trades that you have probably never thought of
before. I met in a Blackwall Salvation Army Shelter a man who looks out
from a high tower, somewhere down the Thames, all night. He starts at
ten o'clock at night, and comes off at six, when he goes home to his
lodging-house to bed. I have never yet been able to glean from him
whose tower it is he looks out from, or what he looks out for. Then
there are those exciting people, the scavengers, who clean our streets
while we sleep, with hose-pipe and cart-brush; the printers, who run off
our newspapers; the sewer-men, who do dirty work underground;
railwaymen, night-porters, and gentlemen whose occupation is not
mentioned among the discreet.

The Salvation Army Shelters are very popular among the lodging-house
patrons, for you get good value there for very little money, and, by
paying weekly, instead of nightly, you get reductions and a
better-appointed dormitory. I know many street hawkers who have lived
for years at one Shelter, and would not think of using a common
lodging-house. The most popular quarter for this latter class of house
is Duval Street, Spitalfields. At one time the reputation of this street
was most noisome; indeed, it was officially known as the worst street in
London. It holds a record for suicides, and, I imagine, for murders. It
was associated in some way with that elusive personality, Jack the
Ripper; and the shadow of that association has hung over it for ever,
blighting it in every p