The policeman—an intelligent man, evidently with some education—laughed. "He may have seen them once in his lifetime, and that was enough for him. The property is managed by an agent, in the employ of the steward of the estate, who walks through it perhaps once a year."
"The rents must be very low."
"Not low enough for them that live here. There isn't a house in the street with less than three or four families in it."
I pointed to two girls whose ages could not have been more than fifteen or sixteen, each with a baby at her breast, "What becomes of them when they grow old?"
"They never grow old," was his significant reply.
"Are you a reporter for a newspaper, sir?"
"No; I am here merely out of curiosity."
"Don't come at night—alone," he said, as he turned away.
His question had put an idea into my head which I thought might be carried into effect for the benefit of that half of the world that does not know how the other half lives.
I make no excuse for introducing this episode into my story; the sights I saw had an indirect bearing upon my own life.