Their gowns, tucked clean up, before, to the middle, hang down behind them in a peaked tail.

A limp bonnet, tied under the chin, makes up the head- dress.

Their curious garb, though soiled, is almost always sound; and one can see that the wash-tub will reveal many a comely face amongst them.

The dusky damsels are "to the manner born," and as they walk about the streets, thoughtless of singularity, the Wigan people let them go unheeded by.

Before I had been two hours in the town, I was put into communication with one of the active members of the Relief Committee, who offered to devote a few hours of the following day to visitation with me, amongst the poor of a district called "Scholes," on the eastern edge of the town.