This strange and fitful company flit in and out of the great doors. But for them the House has not the terrors that it holds for the perennially destitute⁠—those who have no abiding place, and for whom life has no foothold. I do not suppose the horror of the coffin-shaped cell ever affects the repose of the widow who drugs, the one who drinks, or those other transitory visitors who take the workhouse in their stride. But for the homeless it remains a thing of menace⁠—a trap from which, once caught, they cannot escape.

Then we come to the women on the road⁠—sturdy, fine specimens, who have become tramps from economic necessity. Such an one is Kitty Grimshaw, who was forced from her lodging in circumstances common to many. Kitty does a regular round, returning to Southwark as the central point. She has still friends among her former employers, and as she told me, could earn a decent living, if only she had a room. Physically fit and astonishingly witty, she is as clean a living woman as could be found.