On almost every public-house that one meets one reads in huge gilt letters the words, "CHARRINGTON & CO.'S ENTIRE." If you go off the main roads it is the same thing--every little public-house flaunts the same legend. From the mighty portals of the brewery, day by day throughout the year, a never-ending flood of alcohol is pouring, and in those enormous vats who shall say how many souls have been dissolved? I quoted above from Sir Walter Besant's _All Sorts and Conditions of Men_. The quotation was more _à-propos_ to commence this life than most people are aware. The story of "Miss Messenger," the heiress to the great East End brewery of "Messenger & Co." in the Mile End Road, and how she went to live among the struggling millions of the East, was inspired by the life story of Frederick N. Charrington. It was his career that, in the first instance, made it possible for Sir Walter to write one of the most popular novels of the last fifty years. A great many people will remember the description in chapter four, where the heiress of the brewery is taken over her own possession for the first time in her life. It is a singularly vivid picture Sir Walter has given us, and one which is substantially true to-day. "The walk from Stepney Green to Messenger and Marsden's Brewery is not far. You turn to the left if your house is on one side, and to the right if it is on the other; then you pass a little way down one street, and a little way, turning again to the left, up another--a direction which will guide you quite clearly. You then find yourself before a great gateway, the portals of which are closed; beside it is a smaller door, at which, in a little lodge, sits one who guards the entrance. "Mr. Bunker nodded to the porter, and entered unchallenged. He led the way across a court to a sort of outer office. "'Here,' he said, 'is the book for the visitors' names. We have them from all countries: great lords and ladies; foreign princes; and all the brewers from Germany and America, who come to get a wrinkle. Write your own name in it too. Something, let me tell you, to have your name in such noble company.'" . . . . . . . . . . "'Ah! it's a shame for such a property to come to a girl--a girl of twenty-one. Thirteen acres it covers--think of that! Seven hundred people it employs, most of them married. Why, if it was only to see her own vats, you'd think she'd get off her luxurious pillows for once, and come here.'