CHAPTER XX.
"Poor Tom's a-cold! Who gives anything to poor Tom ?" -- King Lear.
One sometimes meets with remarkable differences of condition in the households of poor folk, which stand side by side in the same street.

I am not speaking of the uncertain shelters of those who struggle upon the skirts of civilisation, in careless, uncared-for wretchedness, without settled homes, or regular occupation,--the miserable camp followers of life's warfare,--living habitually from hand to mouth, in a reckless wrestle with the world, for mere existence.

I do not mean these, but the households of our common working people.

Amongst the latter one sometimes meets with striking differences, in cleanliness, furniture, manners, intellectual acquirements, and that delicate compound of mental elements called taste.

Even in families whose earnings have been equal in the past, and who are just now subject alike to the same pinch of adversity, these disparities are sometimes very great.