The lanes were, with few exceptions, not more than two or three hundred feet long, and the odor from the cellars and lodging houses was miasmatic. Shouts and yells and curses came from drunken male brutes who passed us, and now and then a wretched looking outcast of a woman, hideous with filth and bloated with gin, stole like a shadow from some of the low public houses that were, in accordance with the beer-house act, putting up their shutters. A woman passed us with a stone bottle in one hand and a herring in the other, while we stood looking up and down the narrow street. Her eyes were bloodshot and her face seamed with dissipation and wretchedness, while she grasped the stone bottle hard, and seemed ready to defend her precious property with her life. "Wot have you got there," said my companion seizing the stone jug and holding it to his nose. The woman was almost frenzied at this attempt, as she believed it was, to deprive her of what was far dearer to her than her life. "Give me back my gin!" she screamed, and dashed forward like a tigress to claw his eyes out. The sergeant seemed satisfied, and handed her back the stone vessel with a motion of disgust. "That'll do, ole lady," said he, "I'd rather you'd drink that White Satan nor me. I pitys yer precious witles, that's hall, when you drinks it. Where do you live?" [Sidenote: AN EXPLORATION.] "I live's in 'Purty Bill's lodgin.' I'll show it to you for a brown. Come along." We followed her for a short distance, and now and then, as we passed the doorways and courts, some low blackguard would vent a little of his vile or rough humor upon our devoted heads, merely to keep his intellect in play. "I say, ye pair of duffers, give us tuppence to get a pot o' beer, wont ye; come here, and I'll cash yer check hif you 'ave no small change," said a cut-throat looking rascal of large build who was lying across a door that seemed to open into the earth somewhere. He half rose; fell back on the broken cavern door stupefied with liquor, and began to snore like a wild beast gorged with blood. "This is an awful district, sir," said the detective. "They doesn't stand on ceremony with you here." We passed further down the dark street, and a very dark street it was. The atmosphere was very different from that which hung over London Bridge. The air was noisome, and the collected offal in the gutters sent up a frightful stench to the heavens. At the end of the street was a cul de sac, and before we came to it my conductor stopped at a passage, dim under the midnight sky, which ran back for some distance; I could not tell how far, owing to the darkness.