o'th lasses a-whoam, for aw connot do a hond's turn." The children
had been brought up to factory labour; but both they and their
father had been out of work nearly twelve months. During that time
the family had received relief tickets, amounting to the value of
four shillings a week. Speaking of the old man, the mother said,
"Peter has just getten a bit o' wark again, thank God. He's hardly
fit for it; but he'll do it as lung as he can keep ov his feet."



CHAPTER XVII.



"Lord! how the people suffer day by day
A lingering death, through lack of honest bread;
And yet are gentle on their starving way,
By faith in future good and justice led."
--BLACKBURN BARD.

It is a curious thing to note the various combinations of
circumstance which exist among the families of the poor. On the
surface they seem much the same; and they are reckoned up according
to number, income, and the like. But there are great differences of
feeling and cultivation amongst them; and then, every household has
a story of its own, which no statistics can tell. There is hardly a
family which has not had some sickness, some stroke of disaster,
some peculiar sorrow, or crippling hindrance, arising within itself,
which makes its condition unlike the rest. In this respect each
family is one string in the great harp of humanity--a string which,