A
somewhat overladen cart of coal was passing along and some small quantity
of the coal fell off; no sooner had the wheels passed than several women
and children gathered to the spot, like hens and chickens round a handful
of corn, and picked it up in their aprons. We have nothing similar to
these street-women in our country.
December 10th.--I don't know any place that brings all classes into
contiguity on equal ground so completely as the waiting-room at Rock
Ferry on these frosty days. The room is not more than eight feet,
square, with walls of stone, and wooden benches ranged round them, and an
open stove in one corner, generally well furnished with coal. It is
almost always crowded, and I rather suspect that many persons who have no
fireside elsewhere creep in here and spend the most comfortable part of
their day.
This morning, when I looked into the room, there were one or two
gentlemen and other respectable persons; but in the best place, close to
the fire, and crouching almost into it, was an elderly beggar, with the
raggedest of overcoats, two great rents in the shoulders of it disclosing
the dingy lining, all bepatched with various stuff covered with dirt, and
on his shoes and trousers the mud of an interminable pilgrimage. Owing
to the posture in which he sat, I could not see his face, but only the
battered crown and rim of the very shabbiest hat that ever was worn.
Regardless of the presence of women (which, indeed, Englishmen seldom do
regard when they wish to smoke), he was smoking a pipe of vile tobacco;
but, after all, this was fortunate, because the man himself was not
personally fragrant.
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