long enough to go behind the bench and give vent
to sudden and fiendish shouts. This always jerked
the man and woman abruptly from their sleep; and
at sight of the startled woe upon their faces
the crowd would roar with laughter as it flooded
past.

This was the most striking thing, the general
heartlessness exhibited on every hand. It is a com
monplace, the homeless on the benches, the poor
miserable folk who may be teased and are harmless.
Fifty thousand people must have passed the bench
while I sat upon it, and not one, on such a jubilee
occasion as the crowning of the King, felt his heart
strings touched sufficiently to come up and say to
the woman: " Here s sixpence; go and get a bed."
But the women, especially the young women, made
witty remarks upon the woman nodding, and invaria
bly set their companions laughing.

To use a Briticism, it was cruel; the corre
sponding Americanism was more appropriate it
was fierce. I confess I began to grow incensed
at this happy crowd streaming by, and to extract a
sort of satisfaction from the London statistics which
demonstrate that one in every four adults is destined
to die on public charity, either in the workhouse,
the infirmary, or the asylum.

I talked with the man. He was fifty-four and a
broken-down docker. He could only find odd work

[[150]]

p149 _ -chap- _ toc-1 _ p150w _ toc-2 _ +chap+ _ p151

v?