Читать книгу Charles Peace, or The Adventures of a Notorious Burglar онлайн

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As she gave him this she slipped a shilling in his hand, and then she and the old woman rose and left the kitchen.

Alf Purvis was in a state of wonderment and delight. He changed his ticket for a fourpenny one, and proceeded upstairs to his luxurious sleeping apartment.

The reader must not suppose that we have presented to him the horrors of low lodgings, however, in the brief sketch given of the one in which Alf Purvis sought shelter. At this period those places were foul blots upon a civilised city. They were the nurseries for young thieves and lawless characters of every conceivable description. Personal narratives are given in “London Labour and the London Poor” by persons who have frequented these dens.

“Nothing can be worse than the health of these places,” says one witness.

Without ventilation, cleanliness, or decency, and with forty person’s breaths perhaps mingling together, they are the ready resort of thieves and all bad characters, and the keepers will hide them, if they can, from the police, or facilitate any criminal’s escape.