required for each are different, and time would thus be lost-at least such was my conclusion. Last year half London was talking of the little match-box maker of Bethnal Green, the poor child of four years, who earned the rent with her labour; and I, amongst the number, exclaimed at and would hardly believe it. Now, with this child, or rather little woman of six, standing before me, at the very same work, it was quite easy of comprehension. I heard of a child of three at the same employ

ment.

In another house, where the father was a chair-maker, the three girls were at these everlasting match-boxes; and on my praising the quickness of one of them, the mother said proudly, 'Oh, you should see my eldest daughter; she's much quicker, but she's making the paste.' We saw her a minute after, untwisting the tiny three-halfpenny bag of flour for the purpose.

After this visit, we came to a large, cheerful, white-washed room on the ground floor, where a widow with six children supported herself and her family by making skewers for tripe and cat's meat. Very cheerful they all were, as they shewed us the different stages of their work. 'My husband,' the woman said, 'met with an accident, so that he couldn't do his common work, six years ago, and as we had several relations in the tripe line, we thought of trying this for a livelihood. I and the children together can make a thousand an hour, and we get sixpence a thousand for them, but we find the wood out of that, which takes seven farthings. I buy the wood in these blocks, and saw each into two pieces, then I chop it into flakes with this hatchet, and the children split the flakes into three or four pieces and cut each into a point.'

'And how are all the children now, after the fever last year?' asked Mrs. S

'Oh! they're all nicely. I'm sure when I and they all come safe out of the hospital-I came first home, and the others when they were well -I felt so built up with ecstasy and gladness. I was better off than my sister was, for she had one of her boys died in the hospital, and her husband's ill now. He was so bad when we went to see him in the hospital, and I'm afraid when we go on Friday, we shall find he's dead.'

Everywhere there were traces of the cholera and fever of last year. We were pointed out one house where a young woman was well early on Sunday morning, but dead before noon. The buildings were mostly old and dirty, and everything to match. In one court, clothes as dirty as could be desired for the wash-tub, were hanging out to dry after having passed through that ordeal. Wherever we went, faces looked lean and hungry, with wistful eyes; but there was little or no begging, except from the Irish. In one court of the latter, seeing our party distributing tea and sugar, they all gathered at their doors to ask us in; and it seemed very hard not to go into every room where we were invited, but time did not

permit. When M could stand the wistful faces no longer, we went to a baker's and armed ourselves with loaves, hid them under our cloaks, and produced them when occasion served; for the district was almost new and unknown, and not yet brought into working order. Mrs. S—, as I said at first, is a 'pioneer,' whose business it is to venture out into unexplored regions, and organize all the machinery of soup-kitchens, mother's meetings, &c. Nobody seemed to mind our all coming into their rooms, though we filled them up if small.

'Don't think we are going to take you by storm,' Mrs. S― continually Ssaid; these young ladies come from the country,' (which was the case with my companion only,) and they want to see London, and where you live. They don't know by half how clever you all are.' We were obliged to leave them, with merely the promise of 'coming again soon,'

-a promise with little comfort in it, for time which would seem soon to us, would drag by wearily enough with them, the 'hope deferred' making it seem longer still. What enhances the sadness of this sort of courts, is that they are so conveniently out of the way, out of sight and mind; the poverty of their inmates will never offend the eye, for no one will pass and notice it; the chance of a well-to-do person passing down their courts is one of rare occurrence. 'It is so long since you came,' was the common sentence to the Bible-woman. We gave our loaves to one or two applicants, but Mrs. S- was not so soft. 'Oh yes, they want it,' she said merrily; 'but the Irish never sit at home and stare at bare walls; they go out and see what's to be got elsewhere. My people are they that sit alone in their cellars and attics, and starve and say nothing about it.'

Wherever she went, Mrs. S― was an universal favourite; her jokes and bon-mots, ('Mrs. S and her antics,' as a poor woman expressed it to me) cheered everyone that could be cheered; and even her inquisitorial questions, as to husband and children, with her pencil and paper in hand to note it all down, never gave offence. 'You don't mind my asking you all these questions,' she would say cheerfully. The particulars just mentioned were necessary, to enter in a book; but I caught her once varying it, by saying, 'Is your husband ill?' instead of 'husband living.' 'No,' the poor woman replied, but he's got no work;' implying that a husband out of work was a husband not worth having.

Going on a round, Mrs. Shas generally some relief to distribute. This morning she had £1 to lay out as she liked, besides tea and sugar and a bottle of wine. This latter we bestowed on an old woman for the healing of her leg, broken out in sores, with the exception of one glass, given, on our way, to a consumptive child. One of the first things she did, on going to each neighbourhood, was to find a baker's shop, and pay for a certain number of quartern loaves; and then, as she went along, to give tickets for these to the most distressed cases, the tickets being merely small pieces of paper with E. S. pencilled on each. A few

minutes after giving a ticket to one woman, we met her munching a huge slice out of her loaf, with hearty good will. She could not pass us without new thanks. Different work this from some country relief, where one woman, with a dish of sausages on the table, will ask the Lady-bountiful of the parish for a meat-ticket, and another confess she only begged 'because she was passing by and thought she might as well call in and ask,' though her husband and sons were in work.* In the house of one very poor widow, with six children, who have been found sitting without a fire, (after having had nothing to eat the day before,) we perceived a curious smell. The poor thing apologized for it cheerfully, saying, 'She hadn't got any firing, and was burning two or three old boots on the fire.' 'Do go to Mrs. C,' said one of the people we had helped: nowhere did they seem to think that helping another was taking away from themselves. So we went up one pair of stairs, and found Mrs. Cvery gentle pleasant person, who talked easily and cheerfully. By the way, some of the houses have seventy-two stairs to get to the top, where poor things are starving whose existence is forgotten. My two little girls,' said Mrs. C—, 'I've called them Mary and Martha after Lazarus's sisters. If they grow up like them, I know they'll give me comfort. They've come into a bad world, haven't they?'..

a

'Wouldn't you like to come and see our Granny?' we were asked by the Spitalfields Bible-woman, 'she's ninety years old.' Our Granny was a dear old body, sitting up in bed, with a smiling face, deaf, but inclined to be very sociable, and vastly pleased with a pair of muffatees that I produced and put on her hands. She was slow at taking in what was said to her, but safe in her memory were stored texts that she had learnt. It was touching to hear her take up and finish the two or three texts that Mrs. S began for her. 'In My Father's House are many mansions;'... if it were not so, I'd have come and told you,' as she involuntarily paraphrased it. In the room above Granny' was her elderly daughter, with a dying husband. He had been a silk-weaver, and had waited six months for a piece of work; but when it came he was too ill to do it, and there it lay, hardly begun, upon the loom, a common piece of dark silk for sun-shades, with a few lines of green at the edge, near the powerless hand that would never finish it. Another loom we saw, standing still for want of work, while the poor man was sitting dull and abstracted in his chair. He also had an old mother in bed, in one corner of the room.

Mrs. S told us how once, going with a coal-ticket in her hand, she found that the woman was out, but a neighbour, without knowing what was brought for her, said, 'Mrs. knows she shall get some coals, because she's been praying for them.'

Another trade that we came across, was that of the needy knifegrinder.' The man was out himself, but wife and children were at home, and the wheel in the corner, with a heap of black-handled, rusty knives,

These are M- 's own and recent experiences.

very old, and worse than what we should use for scraping shoes. These, the wife explained, were what he got from the dust-heaps or the dustmen, and ground and polished carefully to sell at a penny apiece. Mrs. S had a joke or an answer for everybody that came in her way. "The people know me here,' I heard her say to one of the women. 'Yes, and love you too,' was the hearty rejoinder. Her perfect fearlessness and good temper, and ready wit with everybody, are among the secrets of her success. "You little cat,' we heard a child say crossly to her little sister. "Oh, my dear,' said Mrs. S as we passed, that is too bad, to call your sister a little cat; can't you call her anything better than that!'

She says that the children, picking up stray odds and ends of teaching, that we are all God's children, are fond of saying, 'We're all relations ;' and that another one, hearing this, said to her, 'Then you're my aunt,' and has stuck to it ever since that Mrs. S is her aunt. 'They don't mean to be disagreeable, they only mean to be saucy,' she said of some boys who made personal remarks on us as we passed them; they are only enjoying themselves, and we must enjoy ourselves in our own way.' One important piece of news that she told us was, that, as she expressed it, Husbands are not so fond of beating their wives now, for they get six months imprisonment with hard labour for it;' which announcement of the probable increase of connubial felicity of course greatly delighted ladies!

us young

Another piece of good news was, the opening of the Whitechapel Meat-market. 'Mind I shew it you when we pass,' said Mrs. S. 'It was opened on Saturday week; and as I was passing by, Whitechapel resounded with the benedictions of the people-"They'd got a market for themselves at last!" So we went in, and found the meat below, and the groceries up-stairs, and a tariff of prices at the door. The groceries did not seem lower than elsewhere; but the prices of the meat it did one good to see. Ribs of beef were ticketed at sevenpence; shoulders of mutton at fivepence-halfpenny; and I believe legs were the same or lower still. And this in a locality where butcher's meat used to be very dear.

We would not let slip the opportunity of going the whole length of Middlesex Street, better known as Petticoat Lane-a narrow alley, the great depository of stolen property, frequented by pick-pockets and Jews, and famous for sham jewellery and pickles. We were duly warned to mind our pockets, and also not to make our remarks and strictures aloud till we were safe out, for fear we should offend people; and then the curiosities of the place were pointed out to us-the Passover cakes, and the tubs of onions and gherkins. Every shop has a little of everything. But the greatest curiosity of all, in my opinion, was the halfpenny halfpint basin of pea-soup, at a tiny open shop-window, which I could not let pass untasted. So, as I dared not take my purse, out came two of the three farthings (which Mrs. S had boasted should not be stolen

from her in Petticoat Lane) and with a delightful sense of being incognito I stepped forward to the valorous deed, took the basin and tin spoon and began to eat. Virtue proved its own reward, for I found it uncommonly good, out in the chilly evening air; but it was so hot, it would have delayed us too much had I stopped to finish it, so after a few spoonfuls I offered it to a boy who was standing there with potatoes. Το my vexation he civilly declined, and I began to be afraid the soup would be left on my hands and in my hands, but the next comer accepted my generous offer, and we passed on.

It was getting dark, and we soon reached an omnibus station and got home, having seen in six hours enough of misery to think and talk and dream of for a long time. But shall we only think and dream

?

M. S. B.

CORRESPONDENCE.

HOME FOR FOREIGN GOVERNESSES.

AMONG the many perplexities so often recurring, is the want of a home for a Swiss, German, or French governess, when it may be desirable for her and her pupils to part company for a short interval, or when she is changing her situation. The expense of the long journey to her home would be a drain on the purse she is so anxiously filling; and moreover, she would be losing the opportunity of seeking for new employment. She is therefore obliged to take a questionable form of holiday in the same place among the same pupils; or if unengaged, to seek for some dreary lodging, and remain there as 'an unprotected female.'

We are sure therefore that many governesses, and likewise the ladies who are interested for them, will rejoice to hear that a Home is open for them at Brighton. It was established by Monsieur le Pasteur A. Gonin, of the French Reformed Church,' in consequence of the many applications which he received from ladies in difficulties as to a residence during unemployed intervals. It is presided over by a lady of much kindness and experience, who has spent many years on the continent. It is chiefly intended for Protestant ladies, since a Roman Catholic would usually have some connection that would enable her to find a temporary home in a convent; whereas a Swiss, German, or French Protestant is peculiarly isolated and desolate. For a payment of twelve or fourteen shillings per week, a secure and comfortable abode, and congenial society, can thus be obtained; and likewise a recommendation to a fresh situation, since a register is kept open, free of charge, to which it may often be convenient to mothers to apply when in search of a foreign instructress.

Subscriptions and donations are much needed from persons interested in this veritable work of hospitality towards the friendless stranger, in order to cover the primary expenses which have been incurred, and likewise cases of distress, where the funds of a lady have become exhausted. Nor do we think such assistance will be thrown away. There is a library set on foot, to which additions will be gratefully welcomed.

The address of the Superintendent of the Institution is

MISS HOLDITCH,
8, SILLWOOD PLACE,

BRIGHTON.