PUT YOURSELF IN HIS PLACE


By Charles Reade



"I will frame a work of fiction upon notorious fact, so that anybody
shall think he can do the same; shall labor and toil attempting
the same, and fail--such is the power of sequence and connection in
writing."--HORACE: Art of Poetry.




CHAPTER I.


Hillsborough and its outlying suburbs make bricks by the million, spin
and weave both wool and cotton, forge in steel from the finest needle up
to a ship's armor, and so add considerably to the kingdom's wealth.

But industry so vast, working by steam on a limited space, has been
fatal to beauty: Hillsborough, though built on one of the loveliest
sites in England, is perhaps the most hideous town in creation. All ups
and down and back slums. Not one of its wriggling, broken-backed streets
has handsome shops in an unbroken row. Houses seem to have battled in
the air, and stuck wherever they tumbled down dead out of the melee. But
worst of all, the city is pockmarked with public-houses, and bristles
with high round chimneys. These are not confined to a locality, but