e bassinet stands close to
the machine, that the girl mother may push it gently when baby is cross,
and that she may reach the "soother" and replace it when it falls from
baby's mouth.

Now she is settled down! off she goes! She starts on a life of toil,
compared to which slavery is light and pleasant. Oh, the romance of it;
work from morn till late at night. The babe practically unwashed, the
house becomes grimy, and the bed and bassinet nasty. The husband's wages
have not risen, though his expenses have; other children come and some
go; they get behind with their rent; an "ejectment order" is enforced.
The wretched refuse of the home is put on the street pavement, the door
is locked against them, and the wretched couple with their children
are on the pavement too! The only thing to survive the wreck is the
sewing-machine. The only thing that I know among the many things
supplied to the poor on the hire system that is the least bit likely to
stand the wear and tear is the machine. Doubtless the poor pay highly
for it; still it is comforting to know that in this one direction
the poor are supplied with good articles. And the poor respect their
machines, as the poor always respect things that are not shoddy.

I have drawn no fancy picture, but one that holds true with regard to
thousands. Evils that I cannot enumerate and that imagination cannot
exaggerate wait upon and attend these unfortunate, nay, criminal
marriages; which very largely are the result of that one great
all-pervading cause--the housing of the poor.

But in the underworld there are much worse kinds of married life than
the one I have pictured, for those young people did start life with
some income and some hopes. But what can be said about, and what
new condemnation can be passed upon, the marriage of feeble-minded,
feeble-bodied, homeless wanderers? United in the bonds of holy matrimony
by an eager clergy, and approved in this deplorable step by an all-wise
State, thousands of crazy, curious, wretched, penniless individuals, to
whom even the hire system is impossible, join their hopeless lives.

Half idiots of both sexes in our workhouses look at each other, and then
take their discharge after a mutual understanding. They experience no
difficulty in finding clergymen ready to marry them and unite them in
the bonds of poverty and the gall of wretchedness. The blessing of the
Church is pronounced upon this coupling, and away they go!

Over their live