WHITE SLAVERY IX ENGLAND. 209 



even to death. Let them, (the abolitionists) look into 

 that most horrible, most disgusting and filthy scene that 

 man ever beheld, or could behold in no other country than 

 England a cheap lodging-house thousands of which 

 are in London. A " cheap lodging-house" is a place of 

 rest for the most miserable, miserable in worldly circum- 

 stances, miserable in infamy and vice. Poverty and 

 neglect of " the would-be charitable," draw both the 

 innocent and the outcasts of depravity into the same 

 house. The room of a " cheap lodging-house," where 

 there are beds, may contain half-a-dozen or more, de- 

 pending on the number that can find place. The room 

 is filthy as it can be, the walls are darkened over with 

 bugs and vermin of all kinds. The charge for a night's 

 lodging may vary from one half-penny to two pence per 

 night. Those rooms for one half-penny and a penny, 

 have no beds. 



In the evenings the poor, honest, laboring man has to 

 return there when disappointed in getting employment, no 

 matter how virtuous or moral, himself and his famishing 

 wife and little children they have no other refuge from 

 the inclemency of a cold winter night. There retire the 

 young ruffians of London, with their depraved companions, 

 whom they call <f gals," and upon whose prostitution, 

 with that of their own and these young girls' robberies and 

 pick- pocketing, they live. These young wretches, young 

 in years, some of them not more than from twelve to 

 fourteen years of age, yet old in vice, keep two or three 

 " gals," but younger still there are of the most vitiated 

 habits. There are the little children brought up to 

 thieve. There too are the young men and women, wrecks 

 of vice. There too drunkards, and every other species 



