apart in little boxes with their wives and children. Very likely after twelve the argument would be a little clouded, though the talk and the tobacco would be hindrances to tippling rather than inducements to excess. But now there is no general opportunity for intellectual and social intercourse; the public-house is but a dram-shop, parlours are unknown, there is, in fact, 'no house,' but only what is called a bar, where men and women go all day to stand and drink, and drown the memory of their miserable homes.
The richer classes can have no idea of the powerful influence that narrow houses have on working people. They, by their wealth, can keep themselves sufficiently removed from contact with their own domestic architectural surroundings, which indeed are, practically, distant from them, suites of wide and lofty and well-lined enclosures; and, if all is not agreeable, the upholsterer has ample opportunity and scope for his devices. But for the working man there is at home no intermediate distance, and no space for such appliances of furniture for ease and comfort. In his sitting room a table and two chairs take all the width between the fireplace and the opposite partition wall, and when the chairs are occupied the room is full. Nor can the workman have the change of residence and scene that richer men afford when houses are not altogether to their mind. He is directly, and without relief, in constant contact with his house, which is no choice of his, and is by no means his ideal, but in which he suffers daily. A most foolish custom has condemned him to this grievous home imprisonment for life.
The lower middle class are sufferers in much the same way as the workmen; and, to escape the pressing evil, clerks and superior artisans and little tradesmen, who compose so large a part of the suburban population, leave their homes and lose their time and health and money at the billiard-room, the tavern, and the music-hall. This is the secret of the great expenditure on drink, a sum that in ten years would buy up
