There is one man who favours the presence of women, and that is the true working-man, who is travelling for work, and after paying his last few coppers for a bed, sits hungry in the lodging-house kitchen, for he is a poor beggar indeed. As a rule the men are indifferent, but these women always guess his secret and pity him. They watch, and if they see no sign of food cooked, or to be cooked, it is not long before he is asked to have a basin of broth or stew, and, if he accepts, the other women--being now correct in their surmises--supply him with bread. In fact, after this initial movement, he is certain of a full stomach as long as he remains at that particular house. Many a poor fellow would have gone supperless to bed, and begun another weary day's march without breakfast, were it not for some thoughtful and unselfish beggar woman in a lodging-house kitchen. Now, as I have said, five women under the influence of drink are less likely to go quietly to bed than twenty or thirty men in the same condition, and that is the landlord's one just objection to female lodgers. With regard to his other objections they are of little account; for, though these women are in the kitchen almost the whole day, continually using the cooking utensils and the fire, do they not wash the former and keep the latter's hearth clean? If he had all male lodgers he would have to keep a man or woman to do these things, or either he or his wife be kept busy; for no lodger, whether it be man, woman, or child, can be expected to do these things themselves, after paying for accommodation. The truth of the matter is that these landlords are like a good many others--they want both rent and possession; and it is the limited number of these places--especially for families--that makes these men so independent. Sometimes, where the accommodation is outrageously bad, the woman lodger stores her resentment until it serves her purpose, and, the morning she is going away, she will often make an hour's delay to tell the landlord her opinion of his place, and he never likes to hear the truth; whereas men come and go, and are not so particular.