"Good evenin-the same to you, Bobby-are you lookin for lodgins to-night?" said he in reply.

"Well, not exzackly-I came with a friend o' mine to take a look at the Crib-have you many lodgers to-night, Jack?"

"Mayhap a matter o' fifty or more. So you wants to look at the Crib, do ye? Well, I ha' no hobjections so as ye don't disturb my lodgers. They are a precious set o' lambs, and belong to the best families in the Kingdom, so I keeps heverythink quiet, sort a like, as they have a great deal a money bet on the races at the Darby, to-morrow."

"Could you give my friend a bed, to-night, and he'll pay you well. He doesn't want to go back to his hotel it's so far at the West End, and he might lose hiself in this big city.

"Give yer friend a bed? D-n my heyes, I should think I could! A dozen beds if he likes-and yourself, too, me hearty."

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"But no pocket-picking, Jack-no 'plant' agin him. Keep hoff yer Bug-hunters,' or ye'll get in trouble for it, Jack." "Do I look like a man 'ud permit sich goings on in my 'Ouse," said Damnable Jack, indignantly, and looking with an injured face at the policeman, "Wot, in my 'ouse, vich is patronized by the Nobility and Gentry? I hopes not. Ye'll not find a man or woman 'ere as would crack a case' or 'break a drum,' and the 'Kidsmen' are, all on them, as perlite as young Swells, they is, on me 'onor."

I followed Mr. Scragg through an unpaved hall-way or passage, and into a small court, from which the lodging house keeper diverged to the right, and knocking at a door in an extension of the main building, it was opened to us, and we entered the apartment. The apartment had a low roof, and the stench from the place was most terrible. In a room about fifty feet long by thirty in width, at least sixty persons were sleeping, or sitting up on their coarse, common flock beds, some smoking, others eating and drinking, and a few were playing cards.

There was a high, old-fashioned fireplace, in the apartment, without coals, and the walls of plaster were very dirty, and broken in many places, showing the bare laths.

Prints of highwaymen adorned the walls, among which was conspicuous Claude Duval leaping a five-barred gate on horseback, and a posse of constables, in bobwigs, in full chase. There was also a daub of paint representing the execution of a wife-murderer, at Newgate, and a copy of the murderer's last speech, framed alongside of the other print. These, with a cheap engraving of Sir Robert Peel, completed the list of works of art in the place.

There was a murmur which grew into quite a hub-bub as I entered the apartment, and not a few of the lodgers vented their surprise or disgust at my appearance, jointly with that of the "Peeler," as they called the policeman.

"Wot the blazes does that Swell want in 'ere," said an old cadger, who was reclining on a bed on the floor, trimming his toe-nails with a jack-knife preparatory to going to bed, much

to the edification of a young girl who sat by his side on the bed, and could not have been more than fifteen years of age.

"Mebbe he's a swell pick-pocket, or fogle-hunter (handkerchief thief,)" said the innocent young creature.

"Hit stands to reason he can't be a fogle hunter, 'cos he's with the blessed Peeler," said the Cadger.

"Well, mebbe he's wiring for the perlice," said the young girl, "and wants to ketch some on us for a 'dummy.'

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"Never mind, Moll, he doesn't want us, and we'll go to sleep, cos we've got to be on the tramp, early in the morning, for the Darby."

This man was forty years of age, and the young girl, not more than fifteen years old, was his mistress, as I afterward learned.

The policeman signified to the proprietor, "Damnable Jack," that he wanted to get a bed where we might sleep together for the night.

"I hardly got a bed left but one and ye's are welcome to it, and for that matter it will hold five men and women, if I wanted to put 'em in it. Come here Phil, and give these gents a bed-they wants to taste the blessed sweets of lodgin house life. Give them their fill of it. Put them in the Lord Chancellor's' bed. Its the best in the house."

Let it be understood, that all the beds in the apartment were placed upon the bare floor, and that the mattresses were filled with dirty straw, which bulged out of their sides, or rags, and gave the room a close, fetid odor. For covering, there were dirty canvass quilts, made of the same stuff from which sails or potato sacks are fashioned. There were no sheets whatever, and the pillows and bolsters were stuffed as were the mattresses with rags or straw.

Near the fire-place was a bare space of smoothly laid brick, without any pretence of bedding at all, which was chalked out in a number of compartments, and each of these compartments was chalked out for a human being to sleep upon. By reposing on the bare, cold floor, the lodger saved a penny and got his bed for three-pence instead of four-pence.

Among the sixty persons present, there were at least twentyfive women, composed of female tramps, vagrants, prostitutes, coster-girls, and peddlers of different kinds of commodities, which they had to leave in an adjoining room that was locked up by the Deputy Lodging Master until the time of leaving their beds early in the morning, when the merchandise was delivered to its owners.

It was by the advice of an Inspector of Police that I made this essay to sleep in a cheap lodging house. He informed me that it was the only method of obtaining a clear knowledge of the habits and practices of the lodgers.

The Lord Chancellor's" bed, as Damnable Jack called it, facetiously, was the best, from its appearance, in the room, and was at the farthest corner. It was generally used by the Dep uty Lodging Master, and had a little chintz screen around it, and the bed itself, which had comparatively clean sheets and bed-furniture, was clevated a few feet from the floor on a sort of trestle work.

The charge for this bed was a shilling to each of us, and the policeman and myself laid down upon it in our clothes, the policeman having a revolver in his side pocket, upon which he kept his right hand during the night, whether he slept or had his eyes open.

I could not sleep in the terrible hole for several hours, and, in fact, did not think of doing so, as I was eager to watch the proceedings of the Scum of London, of which the lodgers were composed.

Many of the young girls had not retired when we came in, and a few of them now began to divest themselves of their clothing, without shame or compunction on their part, or surprise on the part of their fellow lodgers, excepting that now and then some low-bred ruffian would pour forth a torrent of obscenity when some of the female lodgers exposed portions of their filthy bodies.

The place was swarming with vermin, bed-bugs, roaches, and body parasites, in countless numbers, and this was one reason why many of the female lodgers stripped themselves to lie down,