hours after midnight
Who , but they who have felt it , can imagine the sense of loneliness and desolation which must be the portion of those who in the hour of dangerous illness are left to be tended by strangers ; for what hands , be they ever so gentle , can wipe the clammy brow , or smooth the restless bed , like those of mother , wife , or child ? Impressed with these thoughts , we have turned away , through the nearly-deserted streets ; and the sight of the few miserable creatures still hovering about them , has not tended to lessen the pain which such meditations awaken . The hospital is a refuge and resting-place for hundreds , who but for such institutions must die in the streets and doorways ; but what can be the feelings of some outcasts when they are stretched on the bed of sickness with scarcely a hope of recovery ? The wretched woman who lingers about the pavement , hours after midnight , and the miserable shadow of a man -- the ghastly remnant that want and drunkenness have left -- which crouches beneath a window-ledge , to sleep where there is some shelter from the rain , have little to bind them to life , but what have they to look back upon , in death ? What are the unwonted comforts of a roof and a bed , to them , when the recollections of a whole life of debasement stalk before them ; when repentance seems a mockery , and sorrow comes too late ? About a twelvemonth ago , as we were strolling through Covent-garden -LRB- we had been thinking about these things over-night -RRB- , we were attracted by the very prepossessing appearance of a pickpocket , who having declined to take the trouble of walking to the Police-office , on the ground that he had n't the slightest wish to go there at all , was being conveyed thither in a wheelbarrow , to the huge delight of a crowd . Somehow , we never can resist joining a crowd , so we turned back with the mob , and entered the office , in company with our friend the pickpocket , a couple of policemen , and as many dirty-faced spectators as could squeeze their way in .