replied she. "Forty-five," said I. "No,
indeed, I am not forty-five," answered she; "nor forty naither."
"Are you thirty-eight?" "May be I am; I dunno. I don't think I am
thirty-eight naither; I am the same age as my husband." It was no
use talking, so the subject was dropped. As we came away, the woman
followed my friend to the door, earnestly pleading the cause of some
family in the neighbourhood, who were in great distress. "See now,"
said she, "they are a large family, and the poor crayters are
starvin'. He is a shoemaker, an' he doesn't be gettin' any work this
longtime. Oh, indeed, then, Mr Lea, God knows thim people is badly
off." My friend promised to visit the family she had spoken of, and
we came away. The smell of the house, and of the court altogether,
was so sickening that we were glad to get into the air of the open
street again.

It was now about half-past eleven, and my friend said, "We have
another workroom for young women in the schoolroom of St Catherine's
Church. It is about five minutes' walk from here; we have just time
to see it before they break up for dinner." It was a large, square,
brick building, standing by the road side, upon high ground, at the
upper end of Scholes. The church is about fifty yards east of the
schoolhouse. This workroom was more airy, and better lighted than
the one at the Mechanics' Institution. The floor was flagged, which
will make it colder than the other in winter time. There were four
hundred girls in this room, some engaged in sewing and knitting,
others in reading and writing. They are employed four days in the
week, and they are paid ninepence a day, as at the other two rooms
in the town. It really was a pleasant thing to see their clear,
healthy, blond complexions; their clothing, so clean and whole,
however poor; and their orderly deportment. But they had been
accustomed to work, and their work had given them a discipline which
is not sufficiently valued. There are people who have written a
great deal, and know very little about the influence of factory
labour upon health,--it would be worth their while to see some of
these workrooms. I think it would sweep cobwebs away from the
corners of their minds. The clothing made up in these workrooms is
of a kind suitable for the wear of working people, and is intended
to be given away to the neediest among them, in the coming winter. I
noticed a feature here which escaped me in the room at the
Mechanics' Institution. O