and municipal lodging-houses and working-men's homes. Far from it. They
have remedied many of the atrocities attendant upon the irresponsible
small doss-houses, and they give the workman more for his money than he
ever received before; but that does not make them as habitable or
wholesome as the dwelling-place of a man should be who does his work in
the world.

The little private doss-houses, as a rule, are unmitigated horrors. I
have slept in them, and I know; but let me pass them by and confine
myself to the bigger and better ones. Not far from Middlesex Street,
Whitechapel, I entered such a house, a place inhabited almost entirely by
working men. The entrance was by way of a flight of steps descending
from the sidewalk to what was properly the cellar of the building. Here
were two large and gloomily lighted rooms, in which men cooked and ate. I
had intended to do some cooking myself, but the smell of the place stole
away my appetite, or, rather, wrested it from me; so I contented myself
with watching other men cook and eat.

One workman, home from work, sat down opposite me at the rough wooden
table, and began his meal. A handful of salt on the not over-clean table
constituted his butter. Into it he dipped his bread, mouthful by
mouthful, and washed it down with tea from a big mug. A piece of fish
completed his bill of fare. He ate silently, looking neither to right
nor left nor across at me. Here and there, at the various tables, other
men were eating, just as silently. In the whole room there was hardly a
note of conversation. A feeling of gloom pervaded the ill-lighted place.
Many of them sat and brooded over the crumbs of their repast, and made me
wonder, as Childe Roland wondered, what evil they had done that they
should be punished so.

From the kitchen came the sounds of more genial life, and I ventured into
the range where the men were cooking. But the smell I had noticed on
entering was stronger here, and a rising nausea drove me into the street
for fresh air.

On my return I paid fivepence for a "cabin," took my receipt for the same
in the form of a huge brass check, and went upstairs to the smoking-room.
Here, a couple of small billiard tables and several checkerboards were
being used by young working-men, who waited in relays for their turn at
the games, while many men were sitting around, smoking, reading, and
mending their clothes. The young men were hilarious, the old men were
glo