crying, "Get up! Get up! Mafeking is relieved. Come to church! Come and thank God!"

Never was such a congregation as we had that night. Men reeking with fumes of beer and tobacco, women wrapped in shawls because they had had no time to dress themselves, children shivering from their first sleep, with one accord they answered the summons. I slipped on my surplice, crept humbly to the altar, and poured out my soul in such words as came. And when I sat down to the organ and played over the Old Hundredth, and that heterogeneous assembly of human beings "praised God from whom all blessings flow," it was as if a great sorrow had been lifted from the hearts of a united family. Inspiring ? I believe you! The walls of "Little St. Cuthbert's" will listen for a long time before they hear such music again.

CHAPTER VII

WORK AND WAGE

THERE are some curious methods of getting one's living in the East End. Perhaps the strangest of all is that of the pawnbroker's tout. Touting of this kind is woman's work. Proud man will not soil his hands with the degrading business. Yet I never heard that the brute was content with less than the lion's share of the profits. Stella Prince was a tout.

I made Stella's acquaintance some seven years ago. She stopped me in the street one day, and asked me, in a pitiful, despairing way, if I could "do anything" with her husband. She had two black eyes, and her cheeks were of a ghastly pallor. I "did something" with her husband; but at the last moment she would not prosecute, and so the case fell through. After that, things went from bad to worse with Stella. Her husband drank away nearly all his earnings; in his delirium he beat her mercilessly. While he was sleeping off the stupor of the night's debauch, his children and hers would be crying for food. The woman looked hither and thither for employment, and at length found it in that which only the lowest of her class would descend to. Henceforth, every Monday morning saw her collect

M

ing from house to house the oddest imaginable assortment of articles: pots, pans, pictures, ornaments, bits of finery, clothes-mostly clothes. Henceforth, every Saturday night saw her collecting pence from door to door, slinking down to the pawnshop, and presently emerging bent double under her heavy burden.

Poor Stella! What a woman you might have been under happier circumstances! When I have met you with those hideous bulging bundles under your ragged shawl, how my heart has ached for you! You never saw me at those times—you could not. The shame of your shameful profession was heavy on you. You realised that, in the eyes of the world, there was for you but one step of infamy below that which you had taken. And your little ones the thin, pale-faced boy who helped to carry the "things," and who always greeted me with a royal smile; and the wisp of girlhood who seemed to share the horror of your misery and your passionate desire to hide it-what of them? God help you, my sister! For there is no help for you from man.

Another shady profession is the crimp's. Jack Tar is merry but not wise, and the crimp is the parasite that feeds on his folly. When Jack "signs on," it is customary for him to receive a note of hand cashable after his ship has sailed. This method was invented to save the simple creature from himself; for, in earlier days, it was the custom to give him a month's wages in advance, and the fool got drunk on the strength of it, and missed his ship. But the crimp, who frequently keeps the beer-shop, is equal to the new arrangement, and for a consideration will cash the advance notes at sight. So Jack still arrives on board penniless.

In the East End there are numberless working-men

Need

who are "Jack Tars" in nature if not in name. less to say, there is no lack of swindlers to fleece them. Blunt, whose character as an affectionate husband I once vindicated in the teeth of twelve suspicious jurymen, crimps his fellow-workmen. His method is simplicity itself. Let the reader remember that the working-man of Saturday is a different creature from the working-man of Monday. On Saturday he is generous, open-handed, happy as a king; on Monday he is morose, close-fisted, gloomy as a comedian on a holiday. From Monday to Saturday he is in the depths. The public-house doors stand wide, but they serve only to tantalise his appetite: his pockets are absolutely empty. To him, in his deplorable plight, comes Blunt, like an angel of light, with a plan of immediate relief. "Take this little brass disk," says he to the thirsty one, after the manner of a conjurer, "present it at yonder bar, and the results will surprise you."

"How much?" asks the thirsty one.

"Sixpence, please, on Saturday," says Blunt.

'My Gawd!" exclaims the thirsty one, smacking his lips, grabbing the disk, and darting into the beer-shop. My-conscience!" says Blunt, at the thought of his 6,000 per cent. profit.

Enough of the shady side of work. the consideration of the bond fide toiler. is the workshop of London.

Let us turn to

The East End There, everything that

can be made is made, not excepting fortunes, which, for the most part, the fortune-makers keep to themselves. Consider, for example, this hive of industry, the Isle of Dogs. What a wealth of production it can boast! Ships, from the lordly man-o'-war to the humble-minded barge; all that appertains to ships-masts and oars,

sails and ropes, tanks and cisterns, blocks and steeringgear, casks and tarpaulin. Here pickles are made, and paint, boilers and sacks, chemicals and wire-netting, disinfecting fluids and lead, encaustic tiles, railway sleepers, barrels and bottles; here are varnish works and lubricating oil works, foundries for brass and iron, copper works, smelting and gold-ore works, timber yards and fibre works. And the Isle of Dogs is typical of the whole of the East End. In this unknown land, men, women and children labour strenuously for the meat that perishes in order that they themselves may live. Theirs is the incessant toil, the labour that does not physic pain, the meagre meal eaten in discomfort, the unhomelike home. Oh, their wonderful patience! What a sight it is to see them streaming from work at close of day. They are so tired, so hot and grimy, yet so light-hearted withal, that it makes one glad, even as it makes one sad, merely to look at them.

To get work, to do it, to keep it: these are the three requisites of the toiler's life; and of the three the getting is the most important. So far from shirking work, the goal of the respectable working-man, passionately striven for, is to secure it. He is painfully aware of the wolf of hunger at the door, cruel and bloodthirsty, waiting for the slightest chance to force an entrance. Be his work, therefore, never so unhealthy, never so exacting, the radiant smile will light up his face with very gratitude. Only when it fails does the light fail.

The respectable working-man out of work quickly degenerates. His gait grows slovenly, his speech halting. The better man he is, the harder is his failure to bear. He falls farther than the sluggard because he has farther to fall; he rises more slowly because he has