"  He  was  in  a  cellar-dwelling  only  two  days  ago — one
of  a  whole  row  of  cellar-dwellings — and  a  boy  had  been

laid  in  his  coffin,  and  when  the  time  came  for  removing

430


OTHER   CARES   OF   A   DIOCESE          431

the  corpse  from  the  cottage  it  was  found  that  the  wall
supporting  the  street  was  so  close  to  the  door  of  the
cottage  that  it  was  scarcely  possible  to  get  the  coffin  out
of  the  house.  In  another  house  he  found  eight  persons
living  in  a  room  8  feet  square,  the  cubical  space  of
which  was  only  sufficient  according  to  the  law  to  house
three  adults.  In  another  house  he  found  a  wretched
starving  woman  who  was  suffering  from  cold  and
rheumatism.  A  tub  was  standing  on  the  floor  to  catch
the  rain  which  had  been  coming  through  the  roof.
Complaint  had  been  made  to  the  landlord  and  he  had
promised  to  have  it  seen  to,  but  he  had  not  done  so.  The
wreck  of  life  and  morality  was  completed  by  the  erection
of  1,027  drinking-houses.  That  was  to  say,  they  had  a
drinking-shop  for  every  two  hundred  of  the  inhabitants  of
Salford,  including  children  and  infants."

And  what  was  the  remedy  ?  When  ships  were  con-
demned as  unfit  to  go  to  sea  they  were  condemned  right
away,  without  any  talk  of  compensation  to  the  owners.
