one man, by whom they had both had several children. Some of these children attended our Ragged School, and were intelligent and well behaved, but were one day discovered by the teacher to be literally loaded with vermin, and were, for the sake of children in a less filthy condition, compelled to be sent away.

In a future section, several pleasing instances of usefulness amongst abandoned women will be given. Sin and misery are twins. "The way of transgressors is hard," Prov. xiii. 15.

The extract from the "Illustrated London News," which occurs at the commencement of this chapter, conveys some idea of the physical condition of the district. Whole courts and alleys are furnished with but one water-closet, and that in a perfectly unapproachable condition. In one instance, a cesspool, built above ground, in White Horse Court, burst, and the contents were allowed to remain until the parish interfered. On visiting a few days afterwards, I found fever had broken out in several tenements, which appeared to be spreading. A paper was written by me upon this occurrence, which found its influential quarters.

way

into

The Fleet Ditch forms the western boundary

of my district, the stench of which at times is very bad. Dean Swift in his day complained of this ditch, making it the basis of a satire on Homer's description of a storm. We find, too, in former ages, legal enactments were made respecting it. It is now partly covered, and although frequently almost stagnant, possesses at times a current sufficient to turn a mill of fortyhorse power. A person well acquainted with water machinery has given me this information. On one occasion, after a heavy thunder-storm in 1817, the current became so rapid, that the arch to the Thames could not carry it off. It burst upwards with terrific force, carrying away two houses and filling one street, Lower Bowling Street, and Bull's Head Court at the lower end, to the depth of seven feet, almost instantaneously. I measured the water-mark on the walls. Heavy articles of furniture were washed away, and several persons narrowly escaped with their lives. On another occasion a man ventured down on a ladder to draw water, whilst the stream was in rapid motion, and was swept away and perished. The stench arising from the open portion upon my district, is at times exceedingly offensive, and various of the inhabitants immediately contiguous,

appear to have suffered severely in their health in consequence. They have bitterly complained of the annoyance, but have added, "What are poor people to do? we can't go to better lodgings; we can hardly pay our shilling or eighteenpence a week here; and if we could, they wouldn't have families in one room in 'spectable streets."

This illustrates the importance of the very desirable improvements in progress in London, which remove these wretched habitations, being accompanied by the erection of others more suitable for them. As these improvements may be said, in this sense, to be made at the expense of thousands of the industrious and honest very poor, who are compelled to live in company with abandoned characters, and to whom a central situation is very important on various accounts, does not justice require some arrangement should be made, to provide them with decent habitations?

The following extract from the first address of the Metropolitan Working Classes Association, will be read with painful interest, and exhibits in a striking light, how truly the lower orders of society, both temporally and spiritually, are "the flock of the slaughter." The statement is taken from Mr. Chadwick's Report to the Poor Law

Commissioners, July, 1842. It refers to Bethnal Green" The average age at death of the gentlemen residents is 45 years, that of the working population only 16."

Dr. Southwood Smith has remarked upon the peculiar depression of spirits and emaciation, produced by inhaling the impure atmospheres of these close, filthy, and ill-ventilated neighbourhoods. This amiable and learned physician considers such depression to be one cause of the intemperance of the working classes—a statement with which I entirely coincide. A common expression is, " You feels low and dull like, and a drop of gin cheers yer."

It is admitted on all hands, that within the last six years, degraded as the district allotted to me was on my leaving it, yet considerable improvement had taken place from what it once was. If it was then a lowest depth of degradation,

"Still in the lowest depth,

A lower depth was found."

The following is an extract from the preliminary observations to my first Annual Report to the City Mission, 1845:-"The Cow Cross district appears ever to have been regarded as one of the very worst class of districts visited by the

City Mission. Indeed, the state and character of the inhabitants on various portions of the district, almost baffle description. But the other day a woman was heard, whilst washing her little child, teaching the child to utter abominable expressions, and threatening the infant with chastisement if it disobeyed. Such a circumstance is far from uncommon. Extreme ignorance and extreme drunkenness prevail on the district. Bred in vice and ignorance, as above fearfully described, the children hear oaths and execrations around them continually. They grow up hardened and vicious. Half-starved and halfnaked, the boys crowd in shoals, meditating plunder; and Mr. Serjeant Adams, at the Sessions House, abutting on the district, remarked lately on the vast numbers of juvenile delinquents brought from the vicinity. The shopkeepers complain loudly to your Missionary of the continued losses they sustain, by the abstraction of goods from their shops.

"Fifty shops are open on the district for trade on the Sabbath-day.

"Fights are very common on the district, amongst women as well as men. On one occasion four women fought one, and, in common