of the clamours of a wife, made gaunt by famishing, he meets with a cheerful attendance beyond the merits of the trifle which he can afford to spend.  He has companions which his home denies him, for the very poor man has no visiters.  He can look into the goings on of the world, and speak a little to politics.  At home there are no politics stirring, but the domestic.  All interests, real or imaginary, all topics that should expand the mind of man, and connect him to a sympathy with general existence, are crushed in the absorbing consideration of food to be obtained for the family.  Beyond the price of bread, news is senseless and impertinent.  At home there is no larder.  Here there is at least a show of plenty; and while he cooks his lean scrap of butcher’s meat before the common bars, or munches his humbler cold viands, his relishing bread and cheese with an onion, in a corner, where no one reflects upon his poverty, he has sight of the substantial joint providing for the landlord and his family.  He takes an interest in the dressing of it; and while he assists in removing the trivet from the fire, he feels that there is such a thing as beef and cabbage, which he was beginning to forget at home.  All this while he deserts his wife and children.  But what wife, and what children?  Prosperous men, who object to this desertion, image to themselves some clean contented family like that which they go home to.  But look at the countenance of the poor wives who follow and persecute their good man to the door of the public house, which he is about to enter, when something like shame would restrain him, if stronger misery did not induce him to pass the threshold.  That face, ground by want, in which every cheerful, every conversable lineament has been long effaced by misery,—­is that a face to stay at home with? is it more a woman, or a wild cat? alas! it is the face of the wife of his youth, that once smiled upon him.  It can smile no longer.  What comforts can it share? what burthens can it lighten?  Oh, ’tis a fine thing to talk of the humble meal shared together!  But what if there be no bread in the cupboard?  The innocent prattle of his children takes out the sting of a man’s poverty.  But the children of the very poor do not prattle.  It is none of the least frightful features in that condition, that there is no childishness in its dwellings.  Poor people, said a sensible old nurse to us once, do not bring up their children; they drag them up.  The little careless darling of the wealthier nursery, in their hovel is transformed betimes into a premature reflecting person.  No one has time to dandle it, no one thinks it worth while to coax it, to soothe it, to toss it up and down, to humour it.  There is none to kiss away its tears.  If it cries, it can only be beaten.  It has been prettily said that “a babe is fed with milk and praise.”  But the aliment of this poor babe was thin, unnourishing; the return to its little baby-tricks, and efforts to