“Many’s the opportunity I get of seeing life,” she told me. “A man will tell me in the road, ‘Come on, Kitty, an’ give me a love, an’ there’s a sixpence for you.’ But I says to them, ‘keep your sixpence, I’ve a man of me own in the Navy, and, please God, I’ll be married next Christmas.”

She told me a great deal, about her “man.” He is a bo’sun’s mate, and her great anxiety is to keep from him that she is a tramp. He writes to her every few weeks and always sends a little money.

“How do you get his letters?” I asked. It did not seem possible that the workhouse should act as a clearing station for correspondence.

“I pays an old lady sixpence a week to take his letters in, me dear. She lives at Peckham, an’ I call there every time I come to town.”