lodgers in the house, but knows them not in the street. When any of
the inmates chance to meet him in one of their alms-seeking rambles,
and present their hat, to see if he will set an example to unwilling
people, he never drops in more than one poor penny; his wife,
however, is considered a trump (a generous woman), and never has the
collection-box held to her, but invariably lets fall a _tanner_, to
shew that she is a _Gemman's_ wife. These people have the reputation
of being honest: anything intrusted to them, of whatever value, is
certain of being returned. Robbery and petty thefts are here very
rare, and fights are never allowed in the house, if the landlord is at
home. There are two kitchens, one for the males and the other for the
females: the men are not permitted to visit the women, and, until
after eleven at night, the time the women's kitchen is cleared, very
few of the latter are allowed to disturb their masculine neighbours;
those who have that privilege, are the select few, who are pleased to
term themselves _wives_. There are sleeping apartments, too, for the
different sexes, and rooms for those who pass as married people; and
when any of the fair part of the inmates happen, in their
perambulations, to meet with a friend of the opposite gender, and
find, as they sometimes do, that it will be necessary to have a little
private communion before they part, the landlord has so far
sympathized with such persons, as to provide a room or two for their
particular use. In short, this place, besides being a common lodging
house, adds to it that now very necessary convenience--a brothel.

There are considerably more than one hundred beds in this house, made
of wood and iron, distributed three and six in a room; the single ones
are fourpence, and the double ones sixpence; and when we add the
profits of this to that of the other two establishments, it must be
allowed that the whole must amount to a gentlemanlike sum.

It is now our duty to enter this abode; and though accustomed to those
retreats of vice and crime, we actually did pay a visit to this very
house, one Saturday evening, and there remained until Monday morning,
taking, from first to last, careful notes of the most extraordinary
characters and their ways, in order that our first sketch might be a
correct picture of the manner in which these outcasts of society spend
the last, the best, and the first part of the week.

Well, then, on Saturday afternoon,