the man's coat is in pledge, he is compelled to remain imprisoned in the
sweater's lodgings for months together. In some sweating places, there is
an old coat kept called a "reliever," and this is borrowed by such men as
have none of their own to go out in. There are very few of the sweaters'
men who have a coat to their backs or a shoe to their feet to come out into
the streets on Sunday. Down about Fulwood's Rents, Holborn, I am sure I
would not give 6d. for the clothes that are on a dozen of them; and it is
surprising to me, working and living together in such numbers and in such
small close rooms, in narrow close back courts as they do, that they are
not all swept off by some pestilence. I myself have seen half-a-dozen men
at work in a room that was a little better than a bedstead long. It was as
much as one could do to move between the wall and the bedstead when it was
down. There were two bedsteads in this room, and they nearly filled the
place when they were down. The ceiling was so low, that I couldn't stand
upright in the room. There was no ventilation in the place. There was no
fireplace, and only a small window. When the window was open, you could
nearly touch the houses at the back, and if the room had not been at the
top of the house, the men could not have seen at all in the place. The
staircase was so narrow, steep, and dark, that it was difficult to grope
your way to the top of the house--it was like going up a steeple. This is
the usual kind of place in which the sweater's men are lodged. The reason
why there are so many Irishmen working for the sweaters is, because they
are seduced over to this country by the prospect of high wages and plenty
of work. They are brought over by the Cork boats at 10s. a-head, and when
they once get here, the prices they receive are so small, that they are
unable to go back. In less than a week after they get here, their clothes
are all pledged, and they are obliged to continue working under the
sweaters.

"The extent to which this system of 'street kidnapping' is carried on