The Mysteries of the Court of London — page 229: what you’re looking at

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| | 218 drag herself along through that morass of human | reptiles, back to the cold and naked lodging where she had left a loved husband lying sick on a | bundle of rags or a heap of straw, and famished little ones huddling together to keep themselves warm, while the poor father endeavoured to cheer his wretched offspring with the hope that their mother would be sure to bring them bread —a nope which ian a few minutes was to experience so dire a disappointment! _ For, oh! honest poverty and nnoblushing yice are aways to be found in the same districts—always inhabit the same neighbourhoods: because a bad reputation cheapens lodgings in those quarters, and the upright poor are driven by an imperious and stern necessity to seek the advantages which inveterate demoralization has thus procured. And itis in this manner that the honest poverty ends , by being drawn into the yortex of corryption aad absorbed in the mass of profligacy and erime: it is | thus that the poor artizan is led to ateal eqaquer - than behold his children atarve tt is thug that his wife is drawn into the leathgome oirale whose centre is the gin-shop, where she imbibes the fire- water that deawas her cares and hoc better feelings at one and the same time;—it is thus, tao, that the fair yaung daughijer of these lost pareats goes forth ipto-the street to steatch out her haad te implore-alms, as if she were haldips it out to God, — when.it is caught by some licenbons 3 sake o hoary voluptuacy, who ‘icops, gald into the palm that anly haped so feel the touch of. pence—end | then .apether virtuous seul is leat, an od anather member.addad to.the sighty thousgnd dager of of crime wha crawd the Gagst thoraughfares and. the moet wretched alleys in the richest city of the universe ! But all this time, away rolls the portly Bishop ia his splendid equipage, dreaming of his thisty housand a. year and the fat livings whieh he has in is gift;—away flies the superb carriage oontain- ing the peer whose enormous income is made up of the flesh and blood of hundreds of starving la- bourers upon his vast estates ;—away goes the cha- riot, in which patrician beauty lolls so languishiagly, not thinking that the poor girl who made the satin dress that she wears, was with the same needle and thread sewing her own winding-sheet ;—away passes the sumptuous barouche, bearing to some banquet the wealthy. manufacturer who has just been voting in the House of Commons some measure calculated to rivet the iron uppression which ajready. goads his slaves to desperation: away glides the brilliant equipgge, on the downy cushion of hich alambers in a dreamy listlessness the ¢oal-mine owner of countless riches, all produced by a sweat as. ago- nising as that which streamed from the Saviour’s pores on the Mount of Oliyes!—away flies the state coach of Royalty to the Qpera which fis the pockets of foreigners with gold, while the vote- ries of the national drama are pining in debtors” prisons or preparing to visit. the Bankruptcy Court on the morrow ; ;— away, Away they all go—thase magnificent equipages, with their splendid steeds, aod their glancing lamps, and their pampered me- nials,—away, away, spurning that ground to which the poor are crushed, aod thrawipg up clouds of that dust which the famishod slaves of tail are. com- pelled to lick : But to return to our tale. We must now seturn to she Earl. of Des THE MYSTERIES. Miles the Buzgloak pursued his path amidst the pestilential streets which lie behind the Abhey; aod at length he entered a low public-house, or flash ken, known by the sign of the Jolly Prize- fighters. Nodding familiarly to the landlord as he passed the bar, he entered the tap-room, in which there was only one person seated .at the moment he crossed the threshold. That person was Dick the Tramper,—a tall, ath- letic, stoutly-built man, with q shock of fiery red hair, a large round face to match, and bushy whis- f the same hue. “ Well, Miles—is it all right?” demanded this in- dividual, as his friend threw himeelf on the same bench near the fire. “All right.” responded the Busglaak. “The saw-bones Thurston will give thirty-five ahiners— and I closed with him.” “ That's just what we said we shonid get by ask- ing forty,” observed the Tramper. “ Well, I han’t been idle either,” he continued, is the husky wice that was habiéual.with him. © I've taken a com- plete suswey of the premisas I spoke to yor. aboat ; and it's easy enow to get.in by the area; for it’s the on’y house ia the squgre that hasn't got, bars at the kitchen winder.” * So tanttee| aate lana nas “But whet about doe W = Oh be'l jiee in, wich ws, angagped Diak the Teamper. “Ho says has quite sok o€ ging bid dewn_ ;-and he'll make one in the affair, if W's en'y to koep hia-self in practice. He'll moot as a6 a oovtain part of the aquareahbich we've agreed "atPhatsgued again” aed the Bapglag Ts a gand : & the Magaman's in. it: nothink never fgils that undertakes. -Rat where's the tosis?” “ Jemmy—eentre-bit—wreach—abeleten-keys— and it all atgwed away cafe,” y+ pane the Tramper, clapping his hands ypog the capacious pookets of hia pepgh coat. * All right,” said Miles, with an appeoving nod of thehead. “ Well, we'll start ten minutes arter mid- night, eh ?—gad in the meantime we've got half.an- hour to.smoke a clay and drink a pot or so.” “ With all my heart,” returned the Tramper. And the two villains set to work to enjoy them. selves accordingly. CHAPTRR LXE SHE. ROYAL AQVESR whom we left at the ae when he quitted Thuraton’a house in May F air. Summoning all his fortitude to his aid, after the crushing assurance, which he had received to the.af- fect that his jen one oly ee ne no- bleman xetyxned home — imself up in his private apaxtment--and gave way to along and pain- ful meditation. We.cannot possibly endeavour to penetrate his thopghts: but that whey were of the most harroming description, might be inferred from his occasional outbursts of passionate grief—the syperhuman.eflorts he made to subdue the fearful excitement which | thus maddened him at interyals—-the nthe anguish with which he from time to time dashed his hands COMME OG co ae A Se eS me yan,