months' want of work, with their little stock of shop stuff oozing away--partly on credit to their poor neighbours, and partly to live upon themselves --and they become destitute of all, except a few beggarly remnants of empty shop furniture. Looking round the place, I said," Well, missis, how's trade?" "Oh, brisk," said she; and then the man and his wife smiled at one another. "Well," said I, "yo'n sowd up, I see, heawever." "Ay," answered she, "we'n sowd up, for sure--a good while sin';" and then she smiled again, as if she thought she had said a clever thing. They had been receiving relief from the parish several weeks; but she told me that some ill-natured neighbour had "set it eawt," that they had sold off their stock out of the shop, and put the money into the bank. Through this report, the Board of Guardians had "knocked off" their relief for a fortnight, until the falsity of the report was made clear. After that, the Board gave orders for the man and his wife and three of the children to be admitted to the workhouse, leaving the other two lads, who were working at the "Stone Yard," to "fend for theirsels," and find new nests wherever they could. This, however, was overruled afterwards; and the family is still holding together in the empty shop,--receiving from all sources, work and relief, about 13s. a week for the seven,--not bad, compared with the income of very many others. It is sad to think how many poor families get sundered and scattered about the world in a time like this, never to meet again. And the false report respecting this family in the little shop, reminds me that the poor are not always kind to the poor. I learnt, from a gentleman who is Secretary to the Relief Committee of one of the wards, that it is not uncommon for the committees to receive anonymous letters, saying that so and so is unworthy of relief, on some ground or other. These complaints were generally found to be either wholly false, or founded upon some mistake. I have three such letters now before me. The first, written on a torn scrap of ruled paper, runs thus:--"May 19th, 1862.--If you please be so kind as to look after __ Back Newton Street Formerly a Resident of __ as i think he is not Deserving Relief.--A Ratepayer." In each case I give the spelling, and everything else, exactly as in the originals before me, except the names. The next of these epistles says:-- "Preston, May 29th.--Sir, I beg to inform you that __, of Park Road, in receipt from the Relief Fund, is a very unworthy person, having worked two days since the 16 and drunk the remainder and his wife also; for the most part, he has plenty of work for himself his wife and a journeyman but that is their regular course of life. And the S___s have all their family working full time. Yours respectfully." These last two are anonymous. The next is written in a very good hand, upon a square piece of very blue writing paper. It has a name attached, but no address:--"Preston, June 2nd, 1862.--Mr.