Page:London - The People of the Abyss.djvu/359

Rh the coarse language and degrading conversation, catching the contagion of it, familiarizing themselves with licentiousness and debauchery.

Mrs. Grundy rules as supremely over the workers as she does over the bourgeoisie; but in the case of the workers, the one thing she does not frown upon is the public house. No disgrace or shame attaches to it, nor to the young woman or girl who makes a practice of entering it.

I remember a girl in a coffee-house saying, &quot;I never drink spirits when in a public 'ouse.&quot; She