and tattered rags, and were as
warm as possible. The tents had many advantages over a brick house.
Besides having no draughts, there was no accumulation of snow upon the
tops of the tents; and so these witless people were content to endure
poverty, hunger, cold, and dirt for the sake of minimising their
contribution to the general good of the whole commonwealth. The poorest
working man in London who does an honest week's work is a hero compared
with such men as these. It would be impossible to nurture sentiment in
any tent in Lamb-lane. There was no face with a glimmer of honest
self-reliance about it, no face bearing any trace of the strange beauty
we had noticed in other encampments, and no form possessed of any
distinguishing grace. The whole of the yards were redolent of dirt; and
the people, each and all, inexcusably foul in person. In several yards
little boys or girls sat on the ground in the open air, tending coke
fires over which stood iron pots, and, as the water boiled and raised the
lids, it was plain that the women were taking advantage of the quiet
hours of the afternoon for a wash. Before we came away from the last
yard, lines had been strung across all the yards, and the hastily-washed
linen rags were fluttering in the air. One tent was closed to visitors.
It was then four o'clock, and a woman told us confidentially her friend
was washing a blanket, which she would have to dry that same afternoon,
as it would be 'wanted' at night; but 'the friend' professed her
readiness to take charge of anything we had to spare for the
washerwoman--a mouthful of baccy, a 'sucker' for the baby, or 'three
ha'pence for a cup of tea.' Boys were there of fourteen and sixteen,
with great rents in the knees of their corduroys, who only went out to
hawk one day in the week--Saturday. They started with a light truck for
Covent-garden at four in the morning, and would have from 4s. to 6s. to
lay out in flowers. When questioned as to what flowers they had bought
on the previous day, one lad said they were 'tulips, hyacinths, and
cyclaments,' but nobody could give us an intelligible description of the
last-named flowers. Two lads generally took charge of the flower truck,
and the result of the day's hawking was usually a profit of half-a-crown
to three shillings. These lads also assisted during the week in shaving
skewers, and accompanied their fathers to market when they had a load to
sell. In one tent we found a dan