looked brutish, and dull even in their sports; there was little mirth
among them, nor even a fully awakened spirit of blackguardism. Yet
sometimes, again, I saw, with surprise and a sense as if I had been asleep
and dreaming, the bright, intelligent, merry face of a child whose dark
eyes gleamed with vivacious expression through the dirt that incrusted its
skin, like sunshine struggling through a very dusty window-pane.

In these streets the belted and blue-coated policeman appears seldom in
comparison with the frequency of his occurrence in more reputable
thoroughfares. I used to think that the inhabitants would have ample time
to murder one another, or any stranger, like myself, who might violate the
filthy sanctities of the place, before the law could bring up its
lumbering assistance. Nevertheless, there is a supervision; nor does the
watchfulness of authority permit the populace to be tempted to any
outbreak. Once, in a time of dearth, I noticed a ballad-singer going
through the street hoarsely chanting some discordant strain in a
provincial dialect, of which I could only make out that it addressed the
sensibilities of the auditors on the score of starvation; but by his side
stalked the policeman, offering no interference, but watchful to hear what
this rough minstrel said or sang, and silence him, if his effusion
threatened to prove too soul-stirring. In my judgment, however, there is
little or no danger of that kind: they starve patiently, sicken patiently,
die patiently, not through resignation, but a diseased flaccidity of hope.
If ever they should do mischief to those above them, it will probably be
by the communication of some destructive pestilence; for, so the medical
men affirm, they suffer all the ordinary diseases with a degree of
virulence elsewhere unknown, and keep among themselves traditionary
plagues that have long ceased to afflict more fortunate societies. Charity
herself gathers her robe about her to avoid their contact. It would be a
dire revenge, indeed, if they were to prove their claims to be reckoned of