My Lodging and Some Others.
The poor, the poor, the poor, they stand, Wedged by the pressing of Trade's hand, Against an inward-opening door That pressure tightens evermore;They sigh a monstrous, foul-air sigh For the outside leagues of liberty, Where art, sweet lark, translates the sky Into a heavenly melody.
-SIDNEY LANIER.
FROM AN EAST LONDON standpoint, the room I rented for six shillings, or a dollar and a half, per week was a most comfortable affair.From the American standpoint, on the other hand, it was rudely furnished, uncomfortable, and small.By the time I had added an ordinary typewriter table to its scanty furnishing, I was hard put to turn around; at the best, I managed to navigate it by a sort of vermicular progression requiring great dexterity and presence of mind.
Having settled myself, or my property rather, I put on my knockabout clothes and went out for a walk.Lodgings being fresh in my mind, Ibegan to look them up, bearing in mind the hypothesis that I was a poor young man with a wife and large family.
My first discovery was that empty houses were few and far between.
So far between, in fact, that though I walked miles in irregular circles over a large area, I still remained between.Not one empty house could I find- a conclusive proof that the district was 'saturated.'
It being plain that as a poor young man with a family I could rent no houses at all in this most undesirable region, I next looked for rooms, unfurnished rooms, in which I could store my wife and babies and chattels.There were not many, but I found them, usually in the singular, for one appears to be considered sufficient for a poor man's family in which to cook and eat and sleep.When I asked for two rooms, the sublettees looked at me very much in the manner, I imagine, that a certain personage looked at Oliver Twist when he asked for more.