t was less than two yards wide, by about four yards
long. There was only one small window, close to the door, and it was
shrouded by a dingy cotton blind. When we first entered, I could
hardly see what there was in that gloomy cell; but when the eyes
became acquainted with the dimness within, we found that there was
neither fire nor furniture in the place, except at the far end,
where an old sick woman lay gasping upon three chairs, thinly
covered from the cold. She was dying of asthma. At her right hand
there was another rickety chair, by the help of which she raised
herself up from her hard bed. She said that she had never been up
stairs during the previous twelve months, but had lain there, at the
foot of the stairs, all that time. She had two daughters. They were
both out of the house; and they had been out of work a long time.
One of them had gone to Miss B_'s to learn to sew. "She gets her
breakfast before she starts," said the old woman, "an' she takes a
piece o' bread with her, to last for th' day." It was a trouble to
her to talk much, so we did not stop long; but I could not help
feeling sorry that the poor old soul had not a little more comfort
to smooth her painful passage to the grave. On our way from this
place, we went into a cottage near the "Coal Yard," where a tall,
thin Irishwoman was washing some tattered clothes, whilst her
children played about the gutter outside. This was a family of
seven, and they were all out of work, except the father, who was
away, trying to make a trifle by hawking writing-paper and
envelopes. This woman told us that she was in great trouble about
one of her children--the eldest daughter, now grown up to womanhood.
"She got married to a sailor about two year ago," said she, "an' he
wint away a fortnit after, an' never was heard of since. She never
got the scrape ov a pen from him to say was he alive or dead. She
never heard top nor tail of him since he wint from her; an' the girl
is just pinin' away."

Poor folk have their full share of the common troubles of life,
apart from the present distress. The next place we visited was the
"Fleece Yard," another of those unhealthy courts, of which there are
so many in Scholes--where poverty and dirt unite to make life doubly
miserable. In this yard we went up three or four steps into a little
disorderly house, where a family of eleven was crowded. Not one of
the eleven was earning anything except the father, who was working
for ls.