FURTHER to elucidate this subject, full of importance, as I have shown, I give an account of low lodging-houses (or "padding-kens") at the "stages" (so to speak) observed by a patterer "travelling" from London to Birmingham.

I give the several towns which are the usual sleeping places of the travellers, with the character and extent of the accommodation provided for

I give each stage without the repetition of stating that from "here to there" is so many miles; and the charge for a lodging is at such and such a rate. The distance most frequently "travelled" in a day varies from to miles, according to the proximity of the towns, and the character and capabilities (for the patterer's purposes) of the locality. The average charge for a lodging, in the better sort of country lodging-houses, is a night,—at others, In a slack time, a traveller, for , has a bed to himself. In a busy time—as at fairs or races— he will account himself fortunate if he obtain share of a bed for At some of the places characterised by my informant as "rackety," "queer," or "Life in London," the charge is as often as

The stage, then, most commonly attained on tramp, is—

—"It's a good circuit, sir," said my principal informant, "and if you want to see life between from London to Birmingham, why you can stretch it and see it for miles." The Romford "house of call" most frequented by the class of whom I treat, is the King's Arms (a public-house.) There is a back-kitchen for the use of travellers, who pay something extra if they choose to resort, and are decent enough to be admitted, into the tap-room. "Very respectable, sir," said an informant, "and a proper division of married and single, of men and women. Of course they don't ask any couple to show their marriage lines; no more than they do any lord and lady, or that ain't a lady, if she's with a lord, at any fash'nable hotel at Brighton. I've done tidy well on slums about 'ladies in a Brighton hotel,' just by the Steyne; werry tidy." In this house they make up beds; some of them with curtains.

—The Queens (a beer-shop.) "A rackety place, sir," said the man, " of the showfuls; a dicky ; a free-and-easy. You can get a pint of beer and a punch of the head, all for As for sleeping on a Saturday night there, 'O, no, we never mention it.' It mayn't be so bad, indeed it ain't, as some London lodging-houses, because there ain't the chance, and there's more known about it." beds.

—The Castle (a beer-shop.) "Takes in all sorts and all sizes; all colours and all nations; similar to what's expected of the Crys- tal Palace. I was a when I was there—why, a muck-snipe, sir, is a man regularly done up, coopered, and humped altogether —and it was a busyish time, and when the deputy paired off the single men, I didn't much like my bed-mate. He was a shabby-genteel, buttoned up to the chin, and in the tract line. I thought of Old Scratch when I looked at him, though he weren't a Scotchman, I think. I tipped the wink to an acquaintance there, and told him I thought my old complaint was coming on. That was, to kick and bite like a horse, in my sleep, a'cause my mother was terrified by a wicious horse not werry long afore I was born. So I dozed on the bed-side, and began to whinny; and my bed-mate jumped up frightened, and slept on the floor." beds.

—"A poor place, but I stay days, it's so comfortable and so country, at the Rose and Crown. It's a sort of rest. It's decent and comfortable too, and it's about a night to me for singing and patter in the taproom. That's my cokum (advantage)." beds.

—The Castle. "Better now —was very queer. Slovenly as could be, and you had to pay for fire, though it was a house of call for curriers and other tradesmen, but they never mix with us. The landlord don't care much whose admitted, or how they go on." beds.

—"The grand town of all. London in miniature. It would be better but for the police. I don't mean the college bull-dogs. They don't interfere with us, only with women. The last time I was at Cambridge, sir, I hung the Mannings. It was the day, or days, I'm not sure which, after their trial. We pattered at night, too late for the collegians to come out. We 'worked' about where we knew they lodged—I had a mate with me—and some of the windows of their rooms, in the colleges themselves, looks into the street. We pattered about later news of Mr. and Mrs. Manning. Up went the windows, and cords was let down to tie the papers to. But we always had the money . We weren't a-going to trust such out-and-out going young coves as them. young gent. said: 'I'm a sucking parson; won't you trust ' 'No,' says I, 'we'll not trust Father Peter.' So he threw down and let down his cord, and he says, 'Send up.' We saw it was Victoria's head all right, so we sends up . 'Where's the others?' says he. 'O,' says I, 'they're a piece, and a piece extra for hanging Mr. and Mrs. Manning, as we have, to a cord; so it's all right.' Some laughed, and some said, 'D—n you, wait till I see you in the town.' But they hadn't that pleasure. Yorkshire Betty's is the head quarters at Cambridge,—or in Barnwell, of course, there's no such places in Cambridge. It's known as 'W— and Muck Fort.' It's the real college touch—the seat of learning, if you're seeing life. The college lads used to look in there oftener than they do now. They're get-

—"The Woolpack. A lively place; middling other ways. There's generally money to be had at Newmarket. I don't stay there so long as some, for I don't care about racing; and the poorest snob there's a sporting character." beds.

—"Old Jack Something's. He was a publican for years. But he broke, and I've heard him say that if he hadn't been a player on the fiddle, he should have destroyed his-self. But his fiddle diverted him in his troubles. He has a real Cremona, and can't he play it? He's played at dances at the Duke of Norfolk's. I've heard him give the tune he played on his wedding night, years and years back, before I was born. He's a noblelooking fellow; the fac-simile of Louis Philippe. It's a clean and comfortable, hard and honest place." beds.

—"A private house; I forget the landlord's name. The magistrates is queer there, and so very little work can be done in my way. I've been there when I was the only lodger." beds.

—"The Tom and Jerry. Very queer. No back kitchen or convenience. A regular rough place. Often quarrelling there all night long. Any caper allowed among men and women. The landlord's easy frightened." beds.

—"Plume of Feathers. Passable." beds.

—"Bell and Dicky, and very dicky too. Queer doings in the dos (sleeping) and everything. It's an out-of-the-way place, or the town's people might see to it, but they won't take any notice unless some traveller complains, and they won't complain. They're a body of men, sir, that don't like to run gaping to a beak. The landlord seems to care for nothing but money. He takes in all that offer. in a bed often; men, women, and children mixed together. It's anything but a tidy place." beds.

—The Cock. "Life in London, sir; I can't describe it better. Life in Keate-street, Whitechapel." beds.

—"I don't mind the name. A most particular place. You must go to bed by , or be locked out. It's hard and honest; clean and rough." beds.

—"A private house. Smith or Jones, I know, or some common name. Ducker, the soldier that was shot in the Park by Annette Meyers, lived there. I worked him there myself, and everybody bought. I did the guntrick, sir, (had great success.) It's an inferior lodging place. They're in no ways particular, not they, who they admit or how they dos. At a fair-time, the goings on is anything but fair." beds.

—"Mrs. Bull's. Comfortable and decent. She takes in the , to oblige her travellers. It's a nice, quiet, Sunday house." beds.

—"There's a good lady there gives away tracts and half-a-crown. A private house is the traveller's house, and some new name. Middling accommodation." beds.

—"A private house, and I'll go there no more. Very queer. Not the least comfort or decency. They're above their business, I think, and take in too many, and care nothing what the travellers do. Higgledy-piggledy togegether." beds.

—"The Rookery. over again, sir, especially at Black Jack's. He shakes up the beds with a pitchfork, and brings in straw if there's more than can possibly be crammed into the beds. He's a fighting man, and if you say a word, he wants to fight you." beds.

—"The Tea-board. Comfortable." beds.

—"The same style as Hinckley. A private house." beds.

—"Deserves to be sent further. Bill Cooper's. A dilapidated place, and no sleep, for there's armies of bugs,—great black fellows. I call it the Sikh war there, and they're called Sikhs there, or Sicks there, is the vermin; but I'm sick of all such places. They're not particular there,—certainly not." beds.

—"Mrs. Leach's. Comfortable and decent, and a good creature. I know there's plenty of houses in Birmingham bad enough,— London reduced, sir; but I can't tell you about them from my own observation, 'cause I always go to Mrs. Leach's." beds.

Here, then, in the route most frequented by the pedestrian "travellers," we find, taking merely the accommodation of house in each place (and in some of the smaller towns there is but ), a supply of beds which may nightly accommodate, on an average, inmates, reckoning at the rate of sleepers to every beds. At busy times, double the number will be admitted. And to these places resort the beggar, the robber, and the pickpocket; the street--patterer and the streettrader; the musician, the ballad-singer, and the street-performer; the diseased, the blind, the lame, and the half-idiot; the outcast girl and the hardened prostitute; young and old, and of all complexions and all countries.

Nor does the enumeration end here. To these places must often resort the wearied mechanic, travelling in search of employment, and even the broken-down gentleman, or scholar, whose means do not exceed

A curious history might be written of the frequenters of low lodging-houses. Dr. Johnson relates, that when Dean Swift was a young man, he paid a yearly visit from Sir William Temple's seat, Moor Park, to his mother at Leicester.

The same author shows that his friend, Richard Savage, in the bitterness of his poverty, was also a lodger in these squalid dens: "He passed the night sometimes in mean houses, which are set open at night to any casual wanderer; sometimes in cellars, among the riot and filth of the meanest and most profligate of the rabble." A Richard Savage of to-day might, under similar circumstances, have the same thing said of him, except that "cellars" might now be described as "ground-floors."

The great, and sometimes the only, luxury of the frequenters of these country lodging-houses is tobacco. A man or women who cannot smoke, I was told, or was not "hardened" to tobacco smoke, in a low lodging-house was halfkilled with coughing. Sometimes a couple of men, may be seen through the thick vapour of the tobacco-smoke, peering eagerly over soiled cards, as they play at all-fours. Sometimes there is an utter dulness and drowsiness in the common sitting-room, and hardly a word exchanged for many minutes. I was told by man of experience in these domiciles, that he had not very unfrequently heard men who were conversing together in a low tone, and probably agreeing upon some nefarious course, stop suddenly, when there was a pause in the general conversation, and look uneasily about them, as if apprehensive and jealous that they had been listened to. A "stranger" in the lodging-house is regarded with a minute and often a rude scrutiny, and often enough would not be admitted, were not the lodging-house keeper the party concerned, and he of course admits "all what pays."

patterer told me of "inscriptions," as he called them, which he had noticed in country lodgings he had lately visited; the was:—

"He who smokes, thinks like a philosopher, and feels like a philanthropist."—

The was an intimation from the proprietor of the house, which, in spite of its halting explanation, is easily understood:—

No sickness allowed, unles by order of the Mare.