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On these old creaking beds, many a half-starved, ruined, desperate, lost soul has stretched himself for the last time, and quickly given up the ghost, little effort it may be making, or (being made by others) to hinder life's last throbbing in him.

Descending by these trembling stairs to the large, open kitchen, with its low, dark walls, blackened by the smoke of years from the great fire-place, whose wide find ugly flue refuses to float off the heavy waste of sputtering fires beneath it; and blackened by constant adhesions of direful, nauseating clouds of smoke from pipes well filled with coarsest product of the old Dominion's staple -- found in the street, begged here and there, or stolen, as the case might chance, which poor and forsaken wretches, tenants of these quarters, men and women, used to while away the hours, and misery make, if not merry, less miserable; and blackened by its darkened windows, stained by no magic art of pencil, but by the common law of unwashen glass; and blackened by its own reflections, every object in it dark and gloomy -- even the countenance divine of men and women moving there from place to place -- you are in the great common room of the poor-house, where the people throng by day, and where they often rest by night.

Here are the same styles of broken windows, worn and feeble chairs and tables, shattered walls and gaping doors elsewhere on the premises discoverable. And in one corner of the room there is a stout, common, grindy looking bedstead, where some of the tenants fling themselves if the few chairs and benches are occupied by others, or it is the refuge of the weary, the sullen, the sick, or intemperate -- a miserable refuge -- a very poor, ugly bed.

By a large, wide door on the end of the building, egress and ingress to and from this apartment takes place. Then there is the so-called parlor, and front south room, and the north bed-room, rooms once very aptly thus denominated, and put to use in manner corresponding. But now these same apartments are only caricatures of those specifications, haggard dormitories now they are, for haggard beings, otherwise minus dormitories altogether. And all these rooms are, as to cleanliness, furniture, comfort, about as marked and attractive as those already spoken of. The doors of more than one of these apartments are altogether missing -- perhaps in some great necessity of fuel, they were "cast into the fire;" others may want a panel, or a hinge, or latch or key and other fastening, so yielding little protection from outsiders, and giving little place of secrecy.

By twos, threes, fours and sixes, the wasted, ill-sorted, and trembling wretches of this New England poor-house were wont to huddle together in these rooms which we have thus imperfectly described. They were never certain of their respective couches, although certain always if sleep o'ertook them, and the light of day awoke them, to arise, gaunt, hungry, cold, and miserable.

But why should they complain of what was charitably given them by their fellow men, and, especially, when to complain would prove them unmindful of their mercies, and fail to soften the hardship? A labor, this, extravagantly useless.

In respect to raiment, the Crampton paupers enjoyed a monopoly of one in many. Their daily, holiday, and Sunday garments were the same. It made no difference with them what saint's day or jubilee or holiday came round; their garments were always ready for the occasion. You would know a pauper by his raiment as certainly as a state-prison fugitive. It was law at the poor-house to wear out their changes of attire -- to wear them to the last shreds, beyond the shiny thread-bare surface, and the treble patch, and many-colored piecing -- to put them clear through, and then resign them with regret. And they wandered here and there, with and without hats, slouching and broken; bonnets flaring and faded; in worn, large, cast-away shoes and boots, in very awkward and misfitting covering throughout -- wandered about idle, vagrant, mournful relics, many -- yea, most of them. of better days -- prominent candidates for a hastily dug, hastily filled, and an unmarked grave.

Such were the white and black paupers of Crampton; a good town of New England; a land of religion, learning, and refinement; a place of thrift, charity, and improvement.

Yet occasionally it would happen that some forlorn wretch, man or woman, driven into the poor-house by disaster common to many and uncommon to some, with memory of other days yet fresh in him, and love of order yet surviving, would trim both room and bed with such an air of neatness or taste, that, despite all the surroundings of wretchedness and mockery of happiness, there would seem in them much of earthly comfort. And also, among these despairing creatures, sometimes there would be found one who loved the Lord, and who would act the part of reprover unto others in their sins, and to all the miserable and dying be a friend and counsellor. So has Providence ordained that even the wretched and the vile shall receive instruction, warning, persuasion, while they remain on earth, although their condition is unfavorable for the exercises of practical piety, and their wickedness would seem too flagrant for hope.