the worth of their coppers. I kept my eye on one
particularly offensive-looking bit of meat, and fol
lowed it through the clutches of over twenty women,
till it fell to the lot of a timid-appearing little
woman whom the butcher bullclosed into taking it.
All day long this heap of scraps was added to and
taken away from, the dust and dirt of the street fall
ing upon it, flies settling on it, and the dirty fingers
turning it over and over.

The costers wheel loads of specked and decaying
fruit around in the barrows all day, and very often
store it in their one living and sleeping room for
the night. There it is exposed to the sickness and
disease, the effluvia and vile exhalations of over
crowded and rotten life, and next day it is carted
about again to be sold.

The poor worker of the East End never knows
what it is to eat good wholesome meat or fruit in
fact, he rarely eats meat or fruit at all; while the
skilled workman has nothing to boast of in the
way of what he eats. Judging from the coffee
houses, which is a fair criterion, they never know
in all their lives what tea, coffee, or cocoa taste
like. The slops and water-witcheries of the coffee
houses, varying only in sloppiness and witchery,
never even approximate or suggest what you and
I are accustomed to drink as tea and coffee.

A little incident comes to me, connected with a

[[238]]

p237 _ -chap- _ toc-1 _ p238w _ toc-2 _ +chap+ _ p239

v?