{"id":"01KG8AKFKTX113ZA256JK3V7P5","cid":"bafkreihdd6fxhufnzyqatasius4rchyjl7jtj77ptgyjdmaas3uem4nkzy","type":"chunk","properties":{"end_line":7218,"extracted_at":"2026-01-30T20:48:05.594Z","extracted_by":"structure-extraction-lambda","label":"Chunk 2","source_file":"01KG89J1DKC9HHJRKY25JZBEXW","start_line":7170,"text":"of those hardships would have fixed him there till the peace. But now,\r\nwhen hostilities were no more, so was his money. Some period elapsed\r\nere the affairs of the two governments were put on such a footing as to\r\nsupport an American consul at London. Yet, when this came to pass, he\r\ncould only embrace the facilities for a return here furnished, by\r\ndeserting a wife and child, wedded and born in the enemy’s land.\r\n\r\nThe peace immediately filled England, and more especially London, with\r\nhordes of disbanded soldiers; thousands of whom, rather than starve, or\r\nturn highwaymen (which no few of their comrades did, stopping coaches\r\nat times in the most public streets), would work for such a pittance as\r\nto bring down the wages of all the laboring classes. Neither was our\r\nadventurer the least among the sufferers. Driven out of his previous\r\nemploy—a sort of porter in a river-side warehouse—by this sudden influx\r\nof rivals, destitute, honest men like himself, with the ingenuity of\r\nhis race, he turned his hand to the village art of chair-bottoming. An\r\nitinerant, he paraded the streets with the cry of “Old chairs to mend!”\r\nfurnishing a curious illustration of the contradictions of human life;\r\nthat he who did little but trudge, should be giving cosy seats to all\r\nthe rest of the world. Meantime, according to another well-known\r\nMalthusian enigma in human affairs, his family increased. In all,\r\neleven children were born to him in certain sixpenny garrets in\r\nMoorfields. One after the other, ten were buried.\r\n\r\nWhen chair-bottoming would fail, resort was had to match-making. That\r\nbusiness being overdone in turn, next came the cutting of old rags,\r\nbits of paper, nails, and broken glass. Nor was this the last step.\r\nFrom the gutter he slid to the sewer. The slope was smooth. In\r\npoverty—“Facilis descensus Averni.”\r\n\r\nBut many a poor soldier had sloped down there into the boggy canal of\r\nAvernus before him. Nay, he had three corporals and a sergeant for\r\ncompany.\r\n\r\nBut his lot was relieved by two strange things, presently to appear. In\r\n1793 war again broke out, the great French war. This lighted London of\r\nsome of its superfluous hordes, and lost Israel the subterranean\r\nsociety of his friends, the corporals and sergeant, with whom wandering\r\nforlorn through the black kingdoms of mud, he used to spin yarns about\r\nsea prisoners in hulks, and listen to stories of the Black Hole of\r\nCalcutta; and often would meet other pairs of poor soldiers, perfect\r\nstrangers, at the more public corners and intersections of sewers—the\r\nCharing-Crosses below; one soldier having the other by his remainder\r\nbutton, earnestly discussing the sad prospects of a rise in bread, or\r\nthe tide; while through the grating of the gutters overhead, the rusty\r\nskylights of the realm, came the hoarse rumblings of bakers’ carts,\r\nwith splashes of the flood whereby these unsuspected gnomes of the city\r\nlived.\r\n\r","title":"Chunk 2"},"relationships":[{"peer":"01KG8AJJRWNYCFCKFX5G6XWAGY","peer_type":"chapter","predicate":"in"},{"peer":"01KG89J1DKC9HHJRKY25JZBEXW","peer_type":"file","predicate":"extractedFrom"},{"peer":"01KG89HMDZKNY753EZE1CJ8HZW","peer_type":"collection","predicate":"collection"},{"peer":"01KG8AKFKTYSTRFP35ZWJVVMAV","peer_type":"chunk","predicate":"prev"},{"peer":"01KG8AKFM04N0Q040N33MVFAJ8","peer_type":"chunk","predicate":"next"}],"ver":2,"created_at":"2026-01-30T20:48:05.754Z","ts":"2026-01-30T20:48:18.743Z","edited_by":{"method":"manual","user_id":"01KFF0H3YRP9ZSM033AM0QJ47H"}}