n Irish car. "What are the three figures yonder?" said
he to the car-boy, pointing to the top of some public building.
"Thim three is the twelve apostles, your honour," answered the
driver. "Nay, nay," said the traveller,"that'll not do. How do you
make twelve out of three?" "Bedad," replied the driver, "your honour
couldn't expect the whole twelve to be out at once such a murtherin'
wet day as this." But we had other things than these to think of
that day. As we drew near the baths and washhouses, where the soup
kitchen is, the stream of people increased. About the gate there was
a cluster of melancholy loungers, looking cold and hungry. They were
neither going in nor going away. I was told afterwards that many of
these were people who had neither money nor tickets for food--some
of them wanderers from town to town; anybody may meet them limping,
footsore and forlorn, upon the roads in Lancashire, just now--
houseless wanderers, who had made their way to the soup kitchen to
beg a mouthful from those who were themselves at death's door. In
the best of times there are such wanderers; and, in spite of the
generous provision made for the relief of the poor, there must be,
in a time like the present, a great number who let go their hold of
home (if they have any), and drift away in search of better fortune,
and, sometimes, into irregular courses of life, never to settle
more. Entering the yard, we found the wooden sheds crowded with
people at breakfast--all ages, from white-haired men, bent with
years, to eager childhood, yammering over its morning meal, and
careless till the next nip of hunger came. Here and there a bonny
lass had crept into the shade with her basin; and there was many a
brown-faced man, who had been hardened by working upon the moor or
at the "stone-yard." "Theer, thae's shap't that at last, as how?"
said one of these to his friend, who had just finished and stood
wiping his mouth complacently. "Shap't that," replied the other,
"ay, lad, aw can do a ticket and a hafe (three pints of soup) every
morning." Five hundred people breakfast in the sheds alone, every
day. The soup kitchen opens at five in the morning, and there is
always a crowd waiting to get in. This looks like the eagerness of
hunger. I was told that they often deliver 3000 quarts of soup at
this kitchen in two hours. The superintendent of the bread
department informed me that, on that morning, he had served out two
thousand loaves, of 3lb. 11