Chapter XIII

Dan Cullen, Docker

>>>>Life scarce can tread majestically
>>>>Foul court and fever-stricken alley.
>>>>-- Thomas Ashe

I stood, yesterday, in a room in one of the
Municipal Dwellings, not far from Leman Street.
If I looked into a dreary future and saw that I
would have to live in such a room until I died, I
should immediately go down, plump into the
Thames, and cut the tenancy short.

It was not a room. Courtesy to the language
will no more permit it to be called a room than it
will permit a hovel to be called a mansion. It was
a den, a lair. Seven feet by eight were its dimen
sions, and the ceiling was so low as not to give the
cubic air space required by a British soldier in bar
racks. A crazy couch, with ragged coverlets,
occupied nearly half the room. A rickety table, a
chair, and a couple of boxes left little space in
which to turn around. Five dollars would have
purchased everything in sight. The floor was
bare, while the walls and ceiling were literally cov
ered with blood marks and splotches. Each mark

[{THE ??MUNICIPAL DWELLINGS, NOT FAR FROM LEMAN STREET.}]

[[158]]

p157 _ -chap- _ toc-1 _ p158w _ toc-2 _ +chap+ _ p159

v?