So the weary widows have been at the wash-tubs all day long, and
are coming home with two shillings hardly earned. They call in
at the dirty general shop, where margarine, cheese, bread, tinned
meat and firewood are closely commingled in the dank air.

A loaf, a pennyworth of margarine, a pennyworth of tea, a bundle
of firewood, half a pound of sugar, a pint of lamp-oil exhaust
their list of purchases, for the major part of their earnings is
required for the rent.

So they climb their stairs, they feed the children, put them
unwashed to bed, do some necessary household work, and then
settle down themselves in some shape, without change of attire,
that they may rest and be ready for the duties of the ensuing
day. Perhaps sweet oblivion will come even to them. "Blessings
on the man who invented sleep," cried Sancho Panza, and there is
a world of truth in his ecstatic exclamation, "it wraps him round
like a garment."

Aye, that it does, for what would the poor weary women and men of
London's underworld do without it? What would the sick and
suffering be without it? In tiny rooms where darkness is made
visible by penny-worths of oil burned in cheap and nasty lamps,
there is no lack of pain and suffering, and no lack of patient
endurance and passive heroism.

As night closes in and semi-darkness reigns around, when the
streets are comparatively silent, when children's voices are no
longer heard, come with me and explore!