fights are very common, and the cry of murder is frequently heard.
The public-houses in this street are crowded to excess, especially,
on the Sabbath evening.[135]

"In the police reports published in the _Sun_ newspaper of the 11th
of October, 1849, the following account is given of '_a penny
lodging-house_' in Blue Anchor Yard, Rosemary Lane. One of the
policemen examined, thus describes a room in this lodging-
house:--'It was a very small one, extremely filthy, and there was no
furniture of any description in it. _There were sixteen men, women,
and children lying on the floor, without covering. Some of them were
half naked._ For this miserable shelter, each lodger paid a penny.
The stench was intolerable, and the place had not been cleaned out
for some time.'

"If the nightly inmates of these dens are added to the tramps who
seek lodging in the vagrant-wards of the workhouses, we shall find
that there are at least between 40,000 and 50,000 tramps who are
daily infesting our roads and streets!"--Vol. i. 431.

In the agricultural districts, whole families, husbands and wives,
sons and daughters, sisters-in-law and brothers-in-law, sleep
together, and here we find a source of extraordinary immorality. "The
accounts we receive," says Mr. Kay--

"From all parts of the country show that these miserable cottages are
crowded to an extreme, and that the crowding is progressively
increasing. People of both sexes, and of all ages, both married and
unmarried--parents, brothers, sisters, and strangers--sleep in the
same rooms and often in the same beds. One gentleman tells us of six