"Why should they? They never went to such a place themselves, and care not that their children should go. They care for nothing but rum, and that the builders of prisons, and hangers of murderers, take care they shall have the means of getting. The imprisonment and hanging, is the sequence of the license system." "But you were to tell us what you saw this evening." "Human misery. The houses of the city poor. The locality is Cow Bay. It opens upon Anthony street at the North West angle of the Five Points." The first _home_ we entered was a cellar room twelve by twenty feet, quite below the surface, and only just high enough to stand up under the beams of the floor over head, while at every step the water oozed up through the boards we trod upon. At one end was the narrow, muddy stairway and door, by which we entered, and at the other a fire-place. On one side two windows with places for three panes of glass to each, gave all the light and ventilation afforded to the four families who occupied the room. These consisted of two men and their wives, two single women, an old woman and her three boys, and a young girl as a boarder. There were four sleeping places, called beds, upon forms, elevated above the floor, for none could sleep on that on account of the water. "Do you always have the water as bad as it is now?" I inquired. "Bad is it? An I wish then you could see it after a big rain, when the water is over the floor entirely fornent the the door." "Have these women husbands?" "These two with the young children have." "What do they do for a living?" "One of them jobs about--but he is on the Island now." "What for?" "Just nothing at all, yer honor, he is as kind a husband as ever lived, only when he takes a drop too much once in a while." "Hould your tongue now, Ellen Maguire, you know your husband is drunk every time he can get liquor, and that is as often as he can coax anybody that has got money into that dirty hole at the corner--Cale Jones's grocery. He is a burner, sir?" "A burner. What is that?" "He asks some one to go and take a drink with him, and then tells him to call for what he likes, and so he drinks and drinks, thinking all the time it is a treat, till he gets ready to go, and then the fellow who keeps the shop stops him and makes him pay for all the liquor the company have drank." "Don't he refuse?" "What's the use? He is burnt, and must stand it. If he refuse, they will take his coat, or hat, or shoes. If he gets off with his breeches on he is lucky." "What does this woman's husband do to support his family?" "Deil a bit can I tell. It is not for me to pry into peoples' business who pay the rint like honest folks." "The rent. How much rent do you pay for this room?"