LODGINGS IN LONDON--A CONVIVIAL HUSBAND--THE WIFE GIVES HER OPINION--FAMILY PLEASURES--FAMILY CARES--DRESSING TO GO OUT--THE DRUNKARD’S VISITORS--CHEAP ENJOYMENT--WHO IS THE OWNER?--LONDON FOR THE POOR As you walk jauntily along any of the great thoroughfares of London, you arrive, ever and anon, at one of those narrow offshoots of which you would scarcely discover the existence, were it not for the paved crossing over which you daintily pick your way on the points of your jetty boots. All the attention you can spare from passing events is devoted to the preservation of your _chaussure_, and you do not probably think it worth while to bestow even a casual peep down that close, winding alley, in which love and hate, and hopes and fears, and human joys and miseries and sympathies, are all packed together, just as they are in your own house in Belgravia, Tyburnia, or Mayfair, only considerably more cramped for room, and a good deal worse off for fresh air. That noble animal, the horse, generally occupies the ground-floor of such tenements as compose these narrow streets, whilst the dirty children of those bipeds who look after his well-being, embryo coachmen, and helpers, and stablemen, play and fight and vociferate in the gutter, with considerable energy and no little noise, munching their dinners _al fresco_ the while, with an appetite that makes dry bread a very palatable sustenance. A strong “smell of stables” pervades the atmosphere, attributable perhaps to the accumulation of that agricultural wealth which, in its _right_ place, produces golden harvests; and the ring of harness and stamp of steeds, varied by an occasional snort, nearly drown the plaintive street organ, grinding away, fainter and fainter, round the corner. Shirts, stockings, and garments of which we neither know the names nor natures, hang, like Macbeth’s banners, “on the outward walls.” Washing appears to be the staple commerce, while porter seems the principal support, of these busy regions; and as the snowy water-lily rises from the stagnant marsh, so does the dazzling shirt-front, in which you will to-day appear at dinner, owe its purity to that stream of soapy starch-stained liquid now pouring its filthy volume down the gutter. Dirty, drowsy-looking men clatter about with pails and other apparatus for the cleansing of carriages, whilst here and there an urchin is pounced upon and carried off by some maternal hawk, with bare arms and disordered tresses, either to return with a smeared mouth and a festive slice of bread and treacle, or to admonish its companions, by piercing cries, that it is undergoing summary punishment not undeserved. The shrill organ of female volubility, we need hardly say, is in the ascendant; and we may add that the faces generally met with, all dirty and careworn though they be, are gilded by an honest expression of contentment peculiar to those who fulfil their destiny by working for their daily bread.