But I believe, as this time of
trouble goes on, the relief committees are giving a more careful and
delicate consideration to the respective conditions of poor
families.
After leaving the old widow's house, as we went farther down into
the sickly hive of penury and dirt, called "Scholes," my friend told
me of an intelligent young woman, a factory operative and a Sunday-
school teacher, who had struggled against starvation, till she could
bear it no longer; and, even after she had accepted the grant of
relief, she "couldn't for shame" fetch the tickets herself, but
waited outside whilst a friend of hers went in for them. The next
house we visited was a comfortable cottage. The simple furniture was
abundant, and good of its kind, and the whole was remarkably clean.
Amongst the wretched dwellings in its neighbourhood, it shone "like
a good deed in a naughty world." On the walls there were several
Catholic pictures, neatly framed; and a large old-fashioned wooden
wheel stood in the middle of the floor, with a quantity of linen
yarn upon it. Old Stephen I__ and his cosy goodwife lived there.
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