The people were of the very various classes which subdivide the
great proletarian order. Children of the gutter and sexless haunters
of the street corner elbowed comfortable artisans and their wives;
there were bareheaded hoidens from the obscurest courts, and
work-girls whose self-respect was proof against all the squalor and
vileness hourly surrounding them. Of the women, whatsoever their
appearance, the great majority carried babies. Wives, themselves
scarcely past childhood, balanced shawl-enveloped bantlings against
heavy market-baskets. Little girls of nine or ten were going from
stall to stall, making purchases with the confidence and acumen of
old housekeepers; slight fear that they would fail to get their
money's worth. Children, too, had the business of sale upon their
hands: ragged urchins went about with blocks of salt, importuning
the marketers, and dishevelled girls carried bundles of assorted
vegetables, crying, 'A penny all the lot! A penny the 'ole lot!'

The public-houses were full. Through the gaping doors you saw a
tightly-packed crowd of men, women, and children, drinking at the
bar or waiting to have their jugs filled, tobacco smoke wreathing
above their heads. With few exceptions the frequenters of the Walk
turned into the public-house as a natural incident of the evening's
business. The women with the babies grew thirsty in the hot, foul
air of the street, and invited each other to refreshment of varying
strength, chatting the while of their most intimate affairs, the
eternal 'says I,' 'says he,' 'says she,' of vulgar converse. They
stood indifferently by the side of liquor-sodden creatures whose
look was pollution. Companies of girls, neatly dressed and as far
from depravity as possible, called for their glasses of small beer,
and came forth again with merriment in treble key.