Strange Lodgers.

Te Aroha News, Volume I, Issue 34, 26 January 1884, Page 5

Strange Lodgers.

Tiik presence of animals not exactly regarded as domestic is a feature of certain poor disti'icts of London. Fowls roost I nightly in dozens of bedi'ooms in the j back streets, and only the other day a score of those miserable tortoises that one sees on barrows destitute of the smallest vestige of green stuff, and probably enduring the most prolonged agony, were discovered crawling about the floor of a costermonger's attic among his progeny' only slightly inferior in point of numbers to the poor animals themselves. In some of the ca.ses uh^re the accommodation for ponies and donkeys may fairly be called " stabling," the entrance is through the passage of a home densely inhabited, and the animals are led in and out daily in such a manner as to be a nuisance to the occupants, while the stables, being so close to the windows of the room and kept in anything but good order, are a constant danger to health. I have been assured by an old inhabitant of the costers' quarters that he knew a donkey who went upstairs to the third floor every night to go to bed ; but old inhabit ants are not to be relied upon, and I give you this story for what it is worth. — " How the Poor Live, 5 ' by G. R. Sims.