Strange, too, as it may seem, in the houses which are being built on improved principles, no provision is made for the barrows and donkeys of the costermongers--a class which enters very largely into the composition of the one-roomed tribes. Some time ago a man was charged with assaulting his wife, and at the magisterial hearing it was elicited that the matrimonial quarrel was all on account of a donkey which slept under the bed. The magistrate was naturally astonished. He didn't believe such a state of things possible. Doubtless his wonder was shared by the public. The presence of a donkey in the apartment of a costermonger and his family is, however, by no means rare, and quite recently a zealous sanitary inspector has discovered a cellar inhabited by a man, his wife, three children, _and four pigs_. The presence of animals not exactly regarded as domestic is a feature of certain poor districts of London. Fowls roost nightly in dozens of bedrooms in the back streets; and only the other day a score of those miserable tortoises that one sees on barrows destitute of the smallest vestige of green stuff, and probably enduring the most prolonged agony, were discovered crawling about the floor of a costermonger's attic among his progeny, only slightly inferior in point of numbers to the poor animals themselves. It is a great complaint of the men, who, as a rule, are hardworking, honest fellows enough in their way, and thrifty, too, when they can keep away from the temptation of drink, that so little attention is being paid to their needs in the many schemes for improved dwellings for the industrial classes. In some of the cases where the accommodation for ponies and donkeys may fairly be called 'stabling,' the entrance is through the passage of a house densely inhabited, and the animals are led in and out daily in such a manner as to be a nuisance to the occupants, while the stables, being so close to the windows of the room and kept in anything but good order, are a constant danger to health. I have been assured by an old inhabitant of the costers' quarters that he knew a donkey who went upstairs to the third floor every night to go to bed; but old inhabitants are not to be relied upon, and I give you the story for what it is worth.