One misery happily drives out another. A lodging-house-keeper informs the
Lord Mayor, that he used to keep a coalshed, but that his business declined, owing to the poor being so closely cramned in .their rooms that they could not bear fires. This same man stated, that eight beds in one room was the allowance, each bed containing the whole family large or small. The sanctity of the marriage-vow among the populace of London may be appre- ciated by this fellow's sneers.
" And do.you fill the other hsils in the same room with married people also ?"— " Sumly. my Lord. I suppose them-as 'comes is married ; for, I dare say, they wouldn't tell no lies about it." (Great laughter.) " SO, you have eight or nine couple and several children, of both sexes, in one room .together all night?"—" Just so, my Lord, when my house is what I calls properly
attended."
"Bat dual you think it Would be more decent and proper to put the men into one room and the females iuto another?"—" Not by no means wlunautudever, please your Lordship. We never separates man and wife—we puts the single men into a room by themselves always : but then, if one on 'ern comes home married of • eight, why we pats him and his wife in along with the steady old couples." (Great Ian pilfer.)
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