A thickly-inhabited part--thickly inhabited by our poorer brethren, by disease engendering smells, by fogs, by smoke, by misery and wretchedness unutterable. Dirty butchers' shops, dirty bakers' shops, open shops where wretched vegetables are vended, shops for sheep's heads and faggots, tripe and sausage shops, brokers' so replete with dirty, time-worn furniture that chairs and tables and stump bedsteads are belched forth upon the narrow pave. Here was a chair with a crick in its back, there a lame table; higher up a cracked looking-glass, while lower down was a wash-tub and four rusty flat-irons. Great Eastern carts and waggons were blocking the way, and now and then side streets revealed the busy mysteries of the goods department. Now I put my foot into an old iron tray full of rusty keys. Extricating myself, I kicked against some jangling iron work, and then hurried on past the shop where the best price was given for old bones; and now I came to a small red board, hung by a string to the bolt of a parlour window-shutter. There was a painting in yellow upon the board--a painting of a very gouty-legged, heavy-bodied mangle; while beneath it was the legend:-- "Mangling Done Here." At the door a bottomless chair was laid sideways to restrain the inquiring dispositions of a treacly-faced child, playing with an old brass candlestick, which it ever and anon sucked with great apparent relish; while upon my knocking loudly, the child howled furiously until a woman, with crimply white hands and steaming, soap-suddy arms, made her appearance. "Does Mrs Perks reside here?" I said. "Oh, bother; no, she don't," was the answer; and then I stood alone. I was wrong, for I had evidently hit upon a rival establishment where mangling was done; but a little more searching brought me to where I could hear the creaking and groaning of the stone-burdened machine as it slowly rolled backwards and forwards in sight of the passer-by, and I soon had a pale face, clean-looking window sobbing bitterly as I told of the mishap. "But you're not deceiving of me; he's not worse than you say? Oh, my poor, poor boy!" There was the mother spoke in those last words--the mother's heart asserting itself, and showing that the love of the poorest and most uneducated is, after all, but the same as may be found amongst the greatest of our land.