At frequent intervals little narrow
passages go winding in among the houses, which all along are closely
conjoined, and seem to have no access or exit, except through the shops,
or into these narrow passages, where you can touch each side with your
elbows, and the top with your hand. We penetrated into one or two of
them, and they smelt anciently and disagreeably. At one of the doors
stood a pale-looking, but cheerful and good-natured woman, who told us
that she had come to that house when first married, twenty-one years
before, and had lived there ever since; and that she felt as if she had
been buried through the best years of her life. She allowed us to peep
into her kitchen and parlor,--small, dingy, dismal, but yet not wholly
destitute of a home look. She said that she had seen two or three
coffins in a day, during cholera times, carried out of that narrow
passage into which her door opened. These avenues put me in mind of
those which run through ant-hills, or those which a mole makes
underground. This fashion of Rows does not appear to be going out; and,
for aught I can see, it may last hundreds of years longer. When a house
becomes so old as to be uutenantable, it is rebuilt, and the new one is
fashioned like the old, so far as regards the walk running through its
front. Many of the shops are very good, and even elegant, and these Rows
are the favorite places of business in Chester. Indeed, they have many
advantages, the passengers being sheltered from the rain, and there being
within the shops that dimmer light by which tradesmen like to exhibit
their wares.
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