My spirits were not enlivened when we turned the corner of a narrow and evil-smelling alley. I kept close to my guide; for a moment my heart failed me, and I had a terrible temptation to run away. It was not so much the darkness, the feeling that the alley was ill-lit or even the sound of furtive feet that flitted about us; it was the close and heavy smell that emerged from the open doorways; that strong, sickly, acrid odour that emanates from humanity packed tightly close. It came with a big blast, that odour, when at last we stopped at an open door, and my guide knocked three times.

An old woman, with whom my companion exchanged a few words, shuffled along the passage. She bade me hand over twopence, and I followed her into a low-ceilinged room, dirty and dingy, and crowded with women, old, elderly and middle-aged, with one or two young things as the exception. A coke fire burnt in the grate, and the air was warm and horribly close. The kitchen at Kennedy Court was a palace compared to it; the benches were broken down, and many of the women sat on the floor, clasping evil-smelling bundles.