PRACTICAL LESSONS IN THE GENTLE CRAFT. 445 



remembered, as a set-off, that nine out of every ten of the 

 great crowd gathered round the Booking-Office window 

 are recruits from the still greater host of workers with bone, 

 muscle, thew and sinew, to whom loss of time during the 

 working hours of the week means not only loss of bread, 

 but perhaps the loss of some small delicacy to a sick and 

 ailing child. Thus it would seem particularly hard to 

 attempt restraint upon such men in the gratification of 

 their simple pleasures, nor is it by any means certain that 

 they do not imbibe far more real good through their vigil 

 by the river's side, than if they had donned the carefully saved 

 suit of go-to-meeting broadcloth, and dozed drowsily and 

 drouthily over a drawling, doctrinal dissertation, delivered 

 by a divine of the " Stiggins " type. Rest assured if 

 there be a sick baby, the little one is rarely forgotten, and 

 smoke-grimed Daddy, all the better and healthier in soul 

 and body for his twelve hours' rest from the roaring forge, 

 gathers her or him, as the case may be, a bonny bundle of 

 wild blossoms which he takes home with him as the top- 

 most layer of the cargo in his roach basket. 



The approaches to either of the lungs of the great Wen 

 which I have spoken of, are indeed a wonderful sight. 

 Gathered there are pale-faced weavers from Spitalfields, with 

 flexible delicate fingers, cane-chair workers, with hard and 

 horny hands ; brawny, swart hammermen, and stout-limbed 

 big-muscled strikers, both of them probably from some 

 neighbouring foundry. Then there are dyers and curriers 

 with the stain of their calling set indelibly on their skins, 

 together with workers, perhaps from a white lead factory 

 with that tallowy, unhealthy complexion inseparable from 

 such a life of toil. Amongst these there are a few, but a 

 very few, smartly dressed clerks with their sweethearts, 

 and these probably eye the hundreds of fishermen wonder- 



