I have drawn no fancy picture, but one that holds true with regard to thousands. Evils that I cannot enumerate and that imagination cannot exaggerate wait upon and attend these unfortunate, nay, criminal marriages; which very largely are the result of that one great all-pervading cause--the housing of the poor. But in the underworld there are much worse kinds of married life than the one I have pictured, for those young people did start life with some income and some hopes. But what can be said about, and what new condemnation can be passed upon, the marriage of feeble-minded, feeble-bodied, homeless wanderers? United in the bonds of holy matrimony by an eager clergy, and approved in this deplorable step by an all-wise State, thousands of crazy, curious, wretched, penniless individuals, to whom even the hire system is impossible, join their hopeless lives. Half idiots of both sexes in our workhouses look at each other, and then take their discharge after a mutual understanding. They experience no difficulty in finding clergymen ready to marry them and unite them in the bonds of poverty and the gall of wretchedness. The blessing of the Church is pronounced upon this coupling, and away they go! Over their lives and means of living I will draw a veil, for common decency forbids me to speak, as common decency ought to have forbidden their marriage. But down in the underworld, and very low down, too, are numberless couples whose plight is perhaps worse, for they have at any rate known the refined comfort of good homes, but remembrance only adds poignancy to suffering and despair. Read the following story, and after condemnation upon condemnation has been passed upon the thoughtless or wicked marriages of the poor, tell me, if you will, what condemnation shall be passed upon the educated when they, through marriage, drag down into this inferno innocent, loving and pure women? It was Boxing Day in a London police-court. Twenty-five years have passed, but that day is as fresh in my memory as though it were yesterday. The prisoners' rooms were filled, the precincts of the court were full, and a great crowd of witnesses and friends, or of the curious public, were congregated in the street. Yesterday had been the great Christian festival, the celebration of the birth of the Prince of Peace, when the bells had rang out the old story "Peace on earth, good-will to men." To-day it looked as though Hell had been holding carnival! Nearly one hundred prisoners had to come before the magistrate. I can see them now! as one by one they passed before him, for time has not dimmed the vivid picture of that procession. I remember their stories, and think still of their cuts and wounds. Outside the court the day was dull, and inside the light was bad and the air heavy with the fumes of stale debauch and chloride of lime. And yesterday had been Christmas Day in the metropolis of Christendom.