lars a week; and thin it's good times wid me.'

"The Woman of the House.--'Don't mind him, man, what he's saying. Shure
he niver earns two dollars a week at all. That id be a good week faix
for me. Two dollars indade!'

"'Have you any children?'

"'We have one dauther, a girl--a fine, big girl.'

"'How old is she?'

"'Well, I suppose she's twenty-two next Mikilmas.'

"Woman.--'Indade she's not, shure. She's only a slip of a gerrul,
fifteen or sixteen years of age, goin' on.'

"While the parents were arguing the age of their daughter, who, it seems,
worked as a servant girl in some private residence, and only slept here
when out of employment, the Health Officer was testing the condition of
the walls by poking his umbrella at the base under the window and
directly over the cess-pool. The point of the umbrella, which was tipped
with a thin sheet of brass, made ready entrance into the walls, which
were so soft and damp that the point of the umbrella when drawn out left
each time a deep circular mark behind, as if it had been drawn from a
rotten or decomposed cheese in summer.

"'Take up a board from the floor,' said the Health Officer. The man, who
informed us that his name was William McNamara, 'from Innis, in the
County Clare, siventeen miles beyand Limerick,' readily complied, and
taking an axe dug up a board without much trouble, as the boards were
decayed, and right underneath we found the top of the brick drain, in a
bad state of repair, the fecal matter oozing up with a rank stench.
Every one stooped down to look at this proof of sanitary disregard, and
while this entire party were on their knees, looking at the broken drain,
two large rats ran across the floor, and nestling in a rather familiar
manner between the legs of Mr. McNamara for an instant, frisked out of
the dreary, dirty room into the luxurious cesspool.

"The physician asked, 'Are those rats?' of Mr. McNamara.

"'Rats is it? endade they were. It's nothing out of the way here to see
thim. Shure some of thim are as big as cats. And why wouldn't
they--they have no wurrok or nothing else to do.'"

III. THE MISSIONS.

There are now three thriving and much-needed Missions in the district, to
which I have applied the general name of the Five Points. These are the
_Five Points Mission_, the _Five Points House of Industry_, and the
_Howard Mission_, _or Home for Little Wanderers_.

The _Five Points Mission_ is the oldest. It is c