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About this book

GOING along one of the back streets of the East End of London on a sultry summer day is by no means a pleasant or refreshing walk. The middle of the street is narrow, and the kennels bordering the side pavements are usually choked up with refuse thrown out from the dwellings on either hand. Heaps of rotting fruit, potato-parings, and decaying cabbage-leaves lie about the causeways, to be eagerly turned over and over in search of a prize by half-famished children, whose only anxiety, during the summer months, is to satisfy, if possible, the hunger always gnawing at them. There is no sweet scent in the air—no freshness; what scents there may be, are the very reverse of sweet. The sun smites down upon the closely built houses and dirty pavement and un-watered street, till fever seems to follow in the trail of the sultry days. At each end of such streets there generally stands a busy spirit-vault, which carries on a thriving trade; for the dry air makes every one athirst, and the door swings to and fro incessantly with the stream of men, women, and children passing in and out.