girl, an' Stephen, an' myself left at home now, an' we have hard
work to pull through, I can assure ye; though there are many people
a dale worse off than we are."

From this place we went up to a street called "Vauxhall Road." In
the first cottage we called at here the inmates were all out of
work, as usual, and living upon relief. There happened to be a poor
old white-haired weaver sitting in the house,--an aged neighbour out
of work, who had come in to chat with my friend a bit. My friend
asked how he was getting on. "Yo mun speak up," said the woman of
the house, "he's very deaf." "What age are yo, maister?" said I.
"What?" "How old are yo?" "Aw'm a beamer," replied the old man, "a
twister-in,--when there's ought doin'. But it's nowt ov a trade
neaw. Aw'll tell yo what ruins me; it's these lung warps. They maken
'em seven an' eight cuts in, neaw an' then. There's so mony
'fancies' an' things i' these days; it makes my job good to nought
at o' for sich like chaps as me. When one gets sixty year owd, they
needen to go to schoo again neaw; they getten o'erta'en wi' so many
kerly-berlies o' one mak and another. Mon, owd folk at has to wortch
for a livin' cannot keep up wi' sich times as these,--nought o'th
sort." "Well, but how do you manage to live?" "Well, aw can hardly
tell,--aw'll be sunken iv aw can tell. It's very thin pikein'; but
very little does for me, an' aw've nought but mysel'. Yo see'n, aw
get a bit ov a job neaw an' then, an' a scrat amung th' rook, like
an owd hen. But aw'll tell yo one thing; aw'll not go up yon, iv aw
can help it,--aw'll not." ("Up yon" meant to the Board of
Guardians.) "Eh, now," said the woman of the house, "aw never see'd
sich a man as him i' my life. See yo, he'll sit an' clem fro mornin'
to neet afore he'll ax oather relief folk or onybody else for a
bite."