38 AX AMERICAN FARMER IX ENGLAND. 



faces seemed expressive of a quite different character ; generally 

 they were sad, but not ill-natured or stupid. It occurred to me 

 that their degradation must have been reached in a different way, 

 and had not brought with it such banishment from all good as they 

 would suffer with us. As they stood, companioned together with 

 each other, but friendless, some with not even hats to protect 

 them from the rain, others, with their gowns drawn up over their 

 head, and others, two together, under a scanty shawl, it would 

 have been difficult, I thought, for any one not to have been soft- 

 ened towards those abandoned thus to seek support of life that 

 night. We could not but think the cheerful words with which 

 the sailors recognized and greeted them, as the ships hauled near, 

 were as much dictated by pity and sympathy as by any worse 

 impulses. They said, " If nobody else is waiting to welcome us, 

 we know that you will be glad that we are coming to the land 

 once more ; so cheer up, and we will help each other again to 

 enjoy a short space of jollity, excitement, and forgetfulness." 



Tired of waiting for the ship, and a good deal fatigued with 

 our tramp on the pavements, about half-past twelve we went back 

 into the town, and by the very obliging assistance of the police- 

 men found lodgings ma" Temperance Hotel," still open at that 

 late hour. We were a little surprised to find a number of men 

 in the coffee-room drinking beer and smoking. The subject of 

 their conversation was some project of an association of work- 

 ing-men to combine their savings, and make more profitable in- 

 vestment of them than could be made of the small amounts of 

 each separately. There were late newspapers on the table, and 

 we sat up some time longer to read them, but they were still at 

 it, puffing and drinking, and earnestly discussing how they could 

 best use their money, when we went up to bed. We had good 

 beds, in pleasant rooms, for which we paid but twenty-five cents 

 each. 



