Sketches by Boz

Chapter 1

THOUGHTS ABOUT PEOPLE

It is strange with how little notice, good, bad, or indifferent, a

man may live and die in London. He awakens no sympathy in the

breast of any single person; his existence is a matter of interest

to no one save himself; he cannot be said to be forgotten when he

dies, for no one remembered him when he was alive. There is a

numerous class of people in this great metropolis who seem not to

possess a single friend, and whom nobody appears to care for.

Urged by imperative necessity in the first instance, they have

resorted to London in search of employment, and the means of

subsistence. It is hard, we know, to break the ties which bind us

to our homes and friends, and harder still to efface the thousand

recollections of happy days and old times, which have been