gnorance of the petitioner shall be
correctly sustained. They know all the charitable people of the
district. They know the species of distress each person is most likely
to relieve, and the days and hours they are most likely to be seen. They
are in a position to instruct the several members of the fraternity as
to the habits and foibles of the "gentlefolks." One is open-handed, but
apt to exact a large degree of humility, and must be approached with
deference. Another, if applied to at the wrong time, may give liberally
to rid himself of their importunities. Another is rough and noisy; but
if the applicant can endure it--which these people can, but decent
people cannot--a largess is certain. With one, clean linen, a
well-starched front, or a neat cap-border, is a desideratum, because it
is supposed to indicate that the wearers were once in a better sphere.
Another will only relieve those who are clothed in well-patched rags, or
"real misery;" and then the appearance must be that of squalid
destitution.

It happened the other day that an individual, in the regular exercise of
his duty, was engaged in making inquiries in one of these
neighbourhoods. The cooped-up dwellings were situated in the centre of a
mass of buildings, round which a carriage might roll in five minutes,
and yet nothing would appear to excite suspicions that within the area
of a few hundred yards, so much real distress, and so much deceit, vice,
and crime were in existence. The visitor has left the crowded
thoroughfare, and entered a narrow cutting which leads to the heart of
the mass of houses. In former days the street was the abode of the
wealthy. Many of these aristocratic dwellings are still standing. They
large and high. The rooms were once magnificent. Their great size is
still visible, notwithstanding the partitions which now divide them. The
elaborate, quaint, and, in some instances, beautiful style of ornament
on the ceilings, the massive mouldings, and richly carved
chimney-pieces, satisfy the observer that, in former days, they were the
abodes of wealth and luxury. They are now tottering with age: the other
day, the interior of one of them fell inwards. These houses may be
entered, one after another, without intrusion. To the uninitiated, the
rooms present the appearance of an unoccupied hospital. All the rooms on
the upper floors are entirely filled with beds. If they are entered at
the close of a cold winter evening, the aspect is cold