D.D.—City readers will know whom I refer to—has opened a branch establishment in Drury Lane, and his place was the only one that was not crowded. I can easily understand the reason—one of the regulations of D.D.’s establishment is that no intoxicated person should be served. I have reason to conclude, from a conversation I had some time ago with one of D.D.’s barmen, that the rule is not very strictly enforced; but if it were carried out at all by the other publicans in Drury Lane I am sure there would be a great falling off of business. Almost every woman had a basket; in that basket was a bottle, which, in the course of the evening, was filled with gin for private consumption; and it was quite appalling to see the number of little pale-faced ragged girls who came with similar bottles on a similar errand. When the liquor takes effect, the women are the most troublesome, and use the worst language. On my remarking to a policeman that the neighbourhood was, comparatively speaking, quiet, he said there had been three or four rows already, and pointed to a pool of blood as confirmation of his statement. The men seemed all more or less stupidly drunk, and stood up one against another like a certain Scotch regiment, of which the officer, when complimented on their sobriety, remarked that they resembled a pack of cards—if one falls, down go all the rest. Late hours are the fashion in the neighbourhood of Drury Lane. It is never before two on a Sunday morning that there is quiet there. Death, says Horace, strikes with equal foot the home of the poor and the palace of the prince. This is not true as regards low lodging-houses. Even in Bethnal Green the Sanitary Commission found that the mean age at death among the families of the gentry, professionalists, and richer classes of that part of Loudon was forty-four, whilst that of the families of the artisan class was about twenty-two. Everyone—for surely everyone has read Mr. Plimsoll’s appeal on behalf of the poor sailors—must remember the description of his experiences in a lodging-house of the better sort, established by the efforts of Lord Shaftesbury in Fetter Lane and Hatton Garden. “It is astonishing,” says Mr. Plimsoll, “how little you can live on when you divest yourselves of all fancied needs. I had plenty of good wheat bread to eat all the week, and the half of a herring for a relish (less will do, if you can’t afford half, for it is a splendid fish), and good coffee to drink, and I know how much—or, rather how little—roast shoulder of mutton you can get for twopence for your Sunday’s dinner.” I propose to write of other lodging-houses—houses of a lower character, and filled, I imagine, with men of a lower class. Mr. Plimsoll speaks in tones of admiration of the honest hard-working men whom he met in his lodging-house. They were certainly gifted with manly virtues, and deserved all his praise. In answer to the question, What did I see there? he replies: