The Works of George W. M. Reynolds — page 245: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

228 REYNOLDS’ WORKS That small house, which according to its size would have only just sufficed for the residence of a decent family of half a dozen in number, contained a swarm of at least fifty persons, huddling and heading together like so many swine, breathing an atmosphere which seemed fraught with pestilence, and rendering the entire place a hotbed for all the elements of plague, cholera, and the fearfullest epidemics. The police constable and the two officers issued forth from the house, and were speedily outside the court. “Did you observe, gentlemen,’ asked the constable, “that girl who suddenly disappeared from the ground-floor rooms and hurried up-stairs — ”’ “Yes. What was her object? ”’ “Tt was to tell those above that it was all right, — that they might make themselves easy, for it was none of them who were wanted. Suppose for argument’s sake that you had oiven a true description, inadvertently letting it slip out of your mouth, and suppose that the person who was really wanted had been all the time up-stairs, — the warning would have been quickly given, and an escape effected by a back window, or perhaps a trap-door on the top of the house. Ah! gentle- men, you don’t know what dodges the keepers of these padding-kens are up to for the purpose of helping those who lodge with them.”’ The police officer now conducted Lord Charles Meredith and Captain Stanley to another house in the same neighbour- hood, and where suppers were going on in every room. It was the resort of beggars and tramps, and was seldom fre- quented by thieves, — the mendicants who patronized it endeavouring to keep it as “ select ’’ as possible. For there are aristocracies, grades, and distinctions even amongst the lowest strata of society, and amidst the whole range of de- moralization’s sphere. In every room throughout this lodging-house, the tables were covered with immense joints and dishes of vegetables; the knives and forks were all chained to the tables; the beer was drunk out of the com- - monest brown mugs, for no publican would trust his pewter pots within the walls of that place. The atmosphere was of the sickliest description, — hot, fetid, and nauseating, made up of the breaths of many persons, the odours of the damp rags which wrapped their forms, the steam of the greasy viands, and the strong smell of the vegetables. But what COMMIELOOL<S,(E0)