On one side two windows with places for three panes of glass to each, gave all the light and ventilation afforded to the four families who occupied the room. These consisted of two men and their wives, two single women, an old woman and her three boys, and a young girl as a boarder. There were four sleeping places, called beds, upon forms, elevated above the floor, for none could sleep on that on account of the water.
"Do you always have the water as bad as it is now?" I inquired.
"Bad is it? An I wish then you could see it after a big rain, when the water is over the floor entirely fornent the the door."
"These two with the young children have."
"One of them jobs about--but he is on the Island now."
"Just nothing at all, yer honor, he is as kind a husband as ever lived, only when he takes a drop too much once in a while."
"Hould your tongue now, Ellen Maguire, you know your husband is drunk every time he can get liquor, and that is as often as he can coax anybody that has got money into that dirty hole at the corner--Cale Jones's grocery. He is a burner, sir?"
"He asks some one to go and take a drink with him, and then tells him to call for what he likes, and so he drinks and drinks, thinking all the time it is a treat, till he gets ready to go, and then the fellow who keeps the shop stops him and makes him pay for all the liquor the company have drank."
"What's the use? He is burnt, and must stand it. If he refuse, they will take his coat, or hat, or shoes. If he gets off with his breeches on he is lucky."
"What does this woman's husband do to support his family?"
"Deil a bit can I tell. It is not for me to pry into peoples' business who pay the rint like honest folks."
"The rent. How much rent do you pay for this room?"
"Fifty cents a week for each of us--that is two dollars in all, every Monday morning in advance; sure, you may well believe that, if you know Billy Crown, the agent. It's never a poor woman that he lets slip; if she was dying, and never a mouthful of bread or drop of anything in the house, the rint must be paid."
"What should a lone woman do? she must live. There is but one way."
"The Lord be thanked, no. It is enough for me to live with me boys. What would I do if I had a drunken husband to support out of me arnings?"