treets and alleys, each
more squalid than its predecessor. We are "somewhere at the back of the
Machua Bazar," well in the heart of the city. There are no houses
here--nothing but acres and acres, it seems, of foul wattle-and-dab
huts, any one of which would be a disgrace to a frontier village. The
whole arrangement is a neatly contrived germ and fire trap, reflecting
great credit upon the Calcutta Municipality.

"What happens when these pigsties catch fire?" "They're built up again,"
say the Police, as though this were the natural order of things. "Land
is immensely valuable here." All the more reason, then, to turn several
Hausmanns loose into the city, with instructions to make barracks for
the population that cannot find room in the huts and sleeps in the open
ways, cherishing dogs and worse, much worse, in its unwashen bosom.
"Here is a licensed coffee-shop. This is where your servants go for
amusement and to see nautches." There is a huge thatch shed,
ingeniously ornamented with insecure kerosene lamps, and crammed with
drivers, cooks, small store-keepers and the like. Never a sign of a
European. Why? "Because if an Englishman messed about here, he'd get
into trouble. Men don't come here unless they're drunk or have lost
their way." The hack-drivers--they have the privilege of voting, have
they not?--look peaceful enough as they squat on tables or crowd by the
doors to watch the nautch that is going forward. Five pitiful
draggle-tails are huddled together on a bench under one of the lamps,
while the sixth is squirming and shrieking before the impassive crowd.
She sings of love as understood by the Oriental--the love that dries the
heart and consumes the liver. In this place, the words that would look
so well on paper have an evil and ghastly significance. The men stare or
sup tumblers and cups of a filthy decoction, and the _kunchenee_ howls
with renewed vigour in the presence of the Police. Where the Dainty
Iniquity was hung with gold and gems, she is trapped with pewter and
glass; and where there was heavy embroidery on the Fat Vice's dress,
defaced, stamped tinsel faithfully reduplicates the pattern on the
tawdry robes of the _kunchenee_.

Two or three men with uneasy consciences have quietly slipped out of the
coffee-shop into the mazes of the huts. The Police laugh, and those
nearest in the crowd laugh applausively, as in duty bound. Perhaps the
rabbits grin uneasily when the ferret lands at the bottom of th