A great many of the tenements had shop-fronts; but these were fast closed, and mouldering away; only the upper rooms being inhabited.

Some houses which had become insecure from age and decay, were prevented from falling into the street, by huge beams of wood reared against the walls, and firmly planted in the road; but even these crazy dens seemed to have been selected as the nightly haunts of some houseless wretches, for many of the rough boards which supplied the place of door and window, were wrenched from their positions, to afford an aperture wide enough for the passage of a human body.

The kennel was stagnant and filthy.

The very rats, which here and there lay putrefying in its rottenness, were hideous with famine.
There was neither knocker nor bell-handle at the open door where Oliver and his master stopped; so, groping his way cautiously through the dark passage, and bidding Oliver keep close to him and not be afraid the undertaker mounted to the top of the first flight of stairs.

Stumbling against a door on the landing, he rapped at it with his knuckles.
It was opened by a young girl of thirteen or fourteen.