I have entered the houses and hovels of journeymen locksmiths and keymakers indiscriminately and unexpectedly, and seen the utmost destitution; no furniture in the room below but a broken board for a table, and a piece of plank laid across bricks for a seat; with the wife hungry--almost crying with hunger--and in rags, _yet the floor was perfectly clean_. I have gone upstairs, and seen a bed on the floor of a room seven feet long by six feet high at one side, but slanting down to nothing, like a wedge, where a husband, his wife and three children slept, and with no other article in the room of any kind whatever except the bed.... William Benton--"Thinks that's his name; can't spell it rightly. Age, don't know justly--mother says he's turned eighteen. Can't read or write; can tell some of his letters. Goes to a Sunday school sometimes. Is of the Baptist school religion, _whatever that is_. Never heard of Moses; never heard of St. Paul. Has heard of Christ; knows who Jesus Christ was--he was Adam. Doesn't care much about going to school if he could...." You will find poor girls who have never sung or danced; never seen a dance; never read a book that made them laugh; never seen a violet or a primrose or other flowers; and others whose only idea of a green field was derived from _having been stung by a nettle_. [Sidenote: _The Song of the Shirt_] The Commission which had been engaged in learning the exact conditions of all the women and children employed in agriculture in England suggested to _Punch_ an imaginary report of an inquiry into the state of the aristocracy, and the moral condition, employment, health, diet, etc., of the residents in Belgrave Square, most of the ladies examined being overworked by violent dancing in overheated rooms. Sweating in the cheap clothes trade was already attracting the notice of reformers, and _Punch_ was on the warpath when a Jew slop-seller prosecuted a poor widow with two children for pawning articles which she had to make up for him. She got 7d. a pair for making up trousers, and earned 7s. a week. It was this episode, exposed in the verses "Moses and Co.," which paved the way for Hood's immortal "Song of the Shirt," the greatest poem, the most noble contribution that ever appeared in the pages of Punch. It was printed in the Christmas number of 1843, and dwarfed all the other contributions to insignificance:-- THE SONG OF THE SHIRT With fingers weary and worn, With eyelids heavy and red, A woman sat in unwomanly rags, Plying her needle and thread-- Stitch! stitch! stitch! In poverty, hunger and dirt, And still with a voice of dolorous pitch She sang the "Song of the Shirt."