re plausible excuses to little minds.

Both my parents were naturally inclined to sobriety; but, unfortunately,
and as it too frequently happens, in low and crowded neighbourhoods,
drunkenness is as contagious as the small-pox, or any other destructive
malady.

Now, it chanced that in the first-floor of the house in which we dwelt,
there also resided one Stubbs and his wife. They had neither chick nor
child. Stubbs was a tailor by trade, and being a first-rate workman,
earned weekly a considerable sum; but, like too many of his fraternity,
he was seldom sober from Saturday night until Wednesday morning. His
loving spouse 'rowed in the same boat'--and the 'little green-bottle' was
dispatched several times during the days of their Saturnalia, to be
replenished at the never-failing fountain of the 'Shepherd and Flock.'

Unhappily, in one of her maudlin fits, Mrs. Stubbs took a particular
fancy to my mother; and one day, in the absence of the 'ninth,' beckoned
my unsuspecting parent into her sittingroom,--and after gratuitously
imparting to her the hum-drum history of her domestic squabbles, invited
her to take a 'drop o' summat'--to keep up her I sperrits.'

Alas! this was the first step--and she went on, and on, and on, until
that which at first she loathed became no longer disagreeable, and by
degrees grew into a craving that was irresistible;--and, at last, she
regularly hob-and-nobb'd' with the disconsolate rib of Stubbs, and shared
alike in all her troubles and her liquor.

Fain would I draw a veil over this frailty of my unfortunate parent; but,
being conscious that veracity is the very soul and essence of history, I
feel myself imperatively called upon neither to disguise nor to cancel
the truth.

My father remonstrated in vain-the passion had already taken too deep a
hold; and one day he was suddenly summoned from his work with the
startling information, that 'Mother Mullins'--(so the kind neighbour
phrased it) was sitting on the step of a public house, in the suburbs,
completely 'tosticated.'

He rushed out, and found the tale too true. A bricklayer in the
neighbourhood proposed the loan of his barrow, for the poor senseless
creature could not walk a step. Placing her in the one-wheel-carriage,
he made the best of his way home, amid the jeers of the multitude.
Moorfields was then only partially covered with houses; and as he passed
a deep hollow, on the side of which was placed a notice, intimating tha