I was just about to inquire which was Brown’s tent, when I saw coming towards me a little woman very like the one I had seen at the court, but a trifle bigger. She carried a babe in each arm, and I saw at a glance that one of them was the little thing I had seen at the court, minus the shawl. ‘Are you the gentleman that spoke to my sister this morning?’ ‘Yes,’ I said. ‘I was just looking for your tent. Which is it?’ She pointed it out, the one I have described. ‘Good gracious! you don’t mean to say that you live there! How many are there of you?’ ‘Three of us and the children.’ ‘Have you a husband?’ ‘No, sir.’ ‘Has your sister?’ ‘No.’ ‘How many children have you?’ ‘Two, and my sister one.’ ‘Any of them born here in this tent?’ ‘No, sir; we go into the “house” to have them.’ ‘Where do you come from?’ ‘Red Lion Street, Holborn.’ ‘Are your parents alive?’ ‘No, sir; both dead.’ ‘What was your father?’ ‘A colour-grinder. We lived in a house when he was alive.’ ‘How old are you?’ ‘Twenty-five; my brother is twenty-two and my sister nineteen.’ ‘How do you all manage to sleep in there?’ ‘We have to take it in turns, sir.’ Here we were joined by the younger sister, who took charge of her own babe. ‘What are you going to do with it?’ I asked. ‘I don’t know, sir.’ ‘I will tell you, then: carry it about till it dies; then there will be an inquest, and you will be in trouble. What are you going to do with your two?’ I asked the elder. She had not the slightest idea. I tried hard to persuade them both to go into the workhouse. The younger ultimately consented, but the elder would have none of it, and went rather sulkily to her tent, as I declined to give them any further assistance. I asked the younger for the tent of the fellow who had robbed her brother, and she said: ‘He has not got a tent; he lives in the dust-shoot over there.’ I promised myself a visit to the dust-shoot.
After telling her that if she would go into the ‘house,’ and let her little one die decently, I would help her to a better life, I went to explore the other ‘tents.’ Three young women were at the door of one, and they were not disposed to be communicative, for they wanted to know who I was, what I was inquiring about, and what business it was of mine; so I tried my luck at another. Husband and wife here--at least, so they told me; but they had no children. They came from Holloway, had been here three months, and meant to stop till the Vestry moved them, which they thought would not be long first. They lived by making letter-racks and flower-pots of scallop-shells, and then hawking them. This was the first time they had lived in this manner, but what were they to do when their home had gone? No, they would not go into the workhouse for me or anyone else; and when they got moved off they supposed they would have to find another place.