There were only two mourners. Mulie, you see, was not a person of much consequence, or troubled with a plethora of friends. Those who took her to her grave now lay the flowers there, her modest tithe of God's good gifts.

It is the "first night" of a new play at what is popularly termed "the luckiest house" in London-a "house" signalized by a constant succession of successes of the most marked kind, to be associated with which is to have your name boldly emblazoned on Fortune's muster roll, in capital letters, too. People speculate a little as to the fate of this fresh bid for dollars, but uncertainty does not last long. By the end of the first act it is apparent to a very highly trained and acute audience that Silver King has scored another of his illustrious victories.

"Never knew such an eye as that fellow's got for pearls of price," mutters one critic to another, as heads, blonds and bruns and chataignes as well, lay their ears together in sweet familiar converse, deep and low.

"That's a rare pretty woman who's taking the wife's part," is the rather Caledonian answer; "uncommonly well she does it too,-written up to suit her, I suppose. She's a newcomer. What's her name-Miss-?"-appealing by the aid of a gold-rimmed double eye-glass to the elaborate playbill. "Miss Clementine Primrose," responds the individual addressed-one not wholly unknown to fame of a scribbling and anonymunculous sort; "Yes, she is really very fair. Did n't I hear something about her -?"

"Most likely," says the other; "she wouldn't be worth much if you had n't."

Which mild pleasantry evokes a smile.

At the close of the second Act, loud calls of "Author! Author!" mingle with the applause, which is uproarious.

No author seems at first forthcoming, but the din increasing, at length a modest-looking gentleman, arrayed in trim evening attire, steps into the full glare of publicity, intensified by that shed from time immemorial by the foot-lights.

The dramatist "born, not made," who, under a nom de plume, has achieved this splendid "hit," is young Ted Hunt, the hard-working comp., the toiler early and late, the husband of Clem, who, magician-wise, transmuting gold of the heart into gold of the head, seems in a fair way of rapidly lining his pockets with that same sumptuous natural product. Ted bows and smiles and looks mighty pleased, as, indeed, well he may; but in his heart he sets it all down to Clem. An ideal wife either on or off the stage, is "Clem.”

HOW THE DUBLIN POOR LIVE.

(Second Article.)

N the August number of this serial I drew a melancholy picture of the wretched homes of the poorest classes in Dublin in the present one, I propose giving a brief account of their miserable fare and insufficient clothing.

A large number of people rise without knowing when they are going to breakfast, for the simple reason that they possess neither money nor credit. The majority of these unfortunates must either earn the price of their morning, or rather the first, meal (for it is often late in the day before it is tasted), or procure it by pawning some item or items of their slender wardrobe. The practice of pawning clothes is not confined to the very poor; it is, in fact, more common amongst the artizan classes. On Monday morning thousands of the working-classes are literally without a farthing. Their Sunday apparel is therefore consigned to the care of the pawnbroker-" the banker of the poor,"-with whom it remains until the following Saturday. Up to twelve o'clock on Saturday night the pawn offices are crowded with the females of the lower classes, "releasing" their own and their relatives' clothes, so that they may be able to wear them on Sunday. The wages are expended in paying the weekly accounts, rent, etc., and in reclaiming articles from the pawnbroker. On Monday morning there is no money left, and therefore the clothes must again be pawned for a few shillings. A large proportion of the workpeople in Dublin regularly pay the pawnbroker from 4d. to Is. 6d. a week; and although these sums may appear very small, yet they are a large percentage of the incomes of the poor.

There is no reason to believe that pawnbroking is more. profitable than most other kinds of business. The pawnbroker has heavy expenses to meet, and the sale of unclaimed articles occasionally fails to realize the sums advanced upon them. I am not reflecting upon him-indeed, his business is regulated by statute law;-I lament that his operations in this city are so extensive. His profits undoubtedly come, in a great part, from the earnings of the poor, and the latter receive no substantial benefit from their dealings with the pawnbroker. I have been able to collect some statistics which shew how enormous is the pawnbrokers' business in this city. In 1884, 2,866,084 pawnbrokers'

tickets were issued in Dublin, and the loans to which they refer amounted to £547,453, or at the rate of nearly £2 45. per head of the population of the city of Dublin. The interest charged for sums under £10 is 10 per cent., and 2d. extra is charged for the "ticket." By far the larger proportion of this large sum was lent for very short periods. Many unfortunate persons were unable to "redeem" their pledges, as would appear from the fact of the unredeemed property sold in 1884, in the Divisional Sale Rooms, realizing the sum of £74,605 14s.

The lower-class tradesmen and the labourers are not as well fed in Dublin as they are in English towns. They consume very little beef or mutton; bacon is universally used. Breakfast consists of bread, sometimes with butter on it, and tea. The bakers' bread in Dublin is very good: that in use amongst the poor is quite white, and is superior to the bread which I have seen in the dwellings of workpeople in English towns. Many housewives make cakes of flour, which is vesiculated by the aid of a little bicarbonate of soda, to which buttermilk is sometimes added. These cakes are baked on a circular sheet of iron, termed a "griddle." Too much bicarbonate of soda is sometimes used, the cakes thereby acquiring a yellow hue, and losing in flavour. The tea is generally weak, but as sugar is very cheap, the beverage is usually well sweetened. It is rarely that any addition to the bread (or cake) and tea is made, except in the shape of a salted herring, costing 1d. or 1d.

The butchers in the fashionable parts of the city dispose of the inferior portions of the carcases of beef, mutton, etc., to the butchers in the poorer quarters of the city, and in return get the sirloins and other "expensive cuts," which the poor are unable to purchase. Necks of mutton, cows' and sheep's heads, some of their viscera, such as the liver and heart, and pigs' feet, are amongst the dainties which the poor purchase, especially for Sunday's dinner. The staple commodities of the dinner-table of the working people who are not very poor are bacon, cabbage, and potatoes. The esculents which enter into dietaries of the artizan and labourer are few-cabbage preponderates enormously over all other vegetables combined, if we except the potato. Swedish turnips are occasionally used; peas and beans are rarely consumed. Pastry and puddings are rarely to be seen on the poor man's table; at Christmas a plum or rice pudding is generally provided, and I think I am correct in saying that the great majority of the poor never enjoy those articles at any other time. Fish is pretty abundant in Dublin, and of excellent quality, but it is dear, and not

much used, except by the middle and upper classes. A rather coarse fish called the hake, conger eel, and herring, are the cheapest fish in Dublin. The hake is not much used, except by the poor. The cooking appliances in the tenements are very defective, and almost invariably consist of the open fireplace; the pot, kettle, and frying-pan, are the utensils used in preparing the menage, but, owing to the want of an oven, pastry cannot be prepared at home. Soup is an institution quite unknown to the vast majority of the dwellers in the tenement houses. They make, however, broth from sheep's or cows' heads, which is thickened with oatmeal, and often with vegetables, forming a kind of Scotch broth.

Very poor persons sometimes put small pieces of bacon into water, and allow the mixture to simmer for a couple of hours. The bacon and liquid in which it is immersed are then taken with bread and tea. The use of the latter article is universal. Many people take three meals of bread and tea per diem-this is especially the case with the seamstresses; the diet is varied by the addition of an egg, or a bit of toasted bacon. I have frequently noticed porters, and other persons whose occupations were of a laborious nature, dining on bread and cold "pig's cheek." The manufacture of "black puddings," is not unfrequently carried on in the room of a tenement house. The plant required is inexpensive, consisting merely of a large can, a table, and a cooking pan. The operator procures pig's blood from the pork butcher or bacon curer, and mixes it whilst quite fresh with oatmeal. It is then manipulated on the table, forced into the viscera of sheep, pigs, or cows, and subjected to a slight degree of cooking, in order to prevent decomposition. These black puddings are to be seen hanging in the windows of lowclass"eating" houses, and provision shops.

A large proportion of the wages of the working-classes is spent in the purchase of alcoholic drinks: the artizan appears to me to be more intemperate than the labourer, and his home is often more squalid. This no doubt arises from the circumstance that the labourer would lose his employment if he failed to attend regularly to it, which is not so much the case with the tradesman. Thousands of the latter rarely work on Monday, and the more intemperate and idle amongst them devote the first two days of the working week to festivities. Formerly, women rarely drank; now they freely help their husbands in their libations to the rosy god. The English workman drinks as freely, perhaps, as his Irish confrère. The Irishman often takes liquor when his stomach has little food in it; the Englishman first eats a good dinner,

and then he drinks his liquor. So enfeebled are thousands of the poor in Dublin, from want of sufficient food, and to some extent from intemperance, that they are unable to resist the ravages of contagious disease, when they assume an epidemic form. This is especially the case with children: measles, which is so seldom fatal in the houses of the rich, often causes a terrible mortality in the homes of the poor.

The clothing of the poor in Dublin is very insufficient, especially in the case of children. The young and the old are least fitted to resist the effects of the cold; and thousands of lives are annually lost, owing to the want of a proper covering for the body. It is melancholy to see how many poor children in this city have their tender bodies exposed to the chilling atmosphere of a winter month, their head and feet without any covering, and the rents in their tattered jackets or frocks exposing the most vulnerable parts of their weak frames. Sometimes there is a ludicrous, as well as a mournful feature, in the dress of children; as, for example, when one sees a boy of ten years old arrayed in the wornout coat and trousers of his father, almost no attempt having been made to curtail the original proportions of the garments. Here let me say that the children of the rich are often insufficiently clad, from a mistaken notion that exposure to cold air renders them hardy. I have often felt indignant when I saw a child of tender years, with arms and legs exposed to the cold winds of winter-exposed to a temperature which his parent would not venture to encounter, unprotected by warm clothing. The seeds of rheumatism and many other affections are sown by exposure to cold; therefore, day and night, let us take care that the very young, and the very old, whose vital energies are low, are well protected from cold and damp. There can be no doubt that a serious loss of life amongst the children of the poor is the result of defective clothing and bedding. After attacks of such diseases as scarlet fever and measles, other maladies (sequela) arise therefrom, and are often fatal. These sequela are, perhaps, more frequently the result of exposure to cold than of any other cause; and I have often noticed, during epidemics of measles, that more children of the poor died from the sequela of the disease than from the disease itself. I think that the parent who neglects to provide sufficient and proper clothing for children should be prosecuted for endangering their lives. Of course there are parents who are too poor to make this necessary provision; but many persons who are fairly well off keep their children almost in a state of nudity. It is easier to point out the unfavour