On our way from this place, we went into a cottage near the "Coal Yard," where a tall, thin Irishwoman was washing some tattered clothes, whilst her children played about the gutter outside.

This was a family of seven, and they were all out of work, except the father, who was away, trying to make a trifle by hawking writing-paper and envelopes.

This woman told us that she was in great trouble about one of her children--the eldest daughter, now grown up to womanhood.
"She got married to a sailor about two year ago," said she, "an' he wint away a fortnit after, an' never was heard of since.

She never got the scrape ov a pen from him to say was he alive or dead.

She never heard top nor tail of him since he wint from her; an' the girl is just pinin' away." Poor folk have their full share of the common troubles of life, apart from the present distress.