have ever done, hard work. There are people
who are born vagrants, and wanderers,
and strollers, and vagabonds, and pests,
and who hate and detest work as the devil
does holy water. They seem to me to
partake of the nature of birds and wild animals,
or, at best, of the Red Indian savages in
America, who can't, or won't, dig or
plough, or cultivate anything, or save
anything, but prefer to trust for their
dinner to the day's chance of snaring
or shooting something as wild as, but better
to eat than, themselves. How they do
hate work, to be sure! They'd rather
cadge and steal for half-a-crown than gain
five shillings honestly. In fact, England
swarms with wild men and women of this
class: men and women who are utterly
untamable, and who use workhouses just as
rich people use hotels, but with this difference,
that they pay for nothing. I do
detest these professional tramps and permanent
poor, and I own that I sometimes wish
that I might order them a good whipping
along with the bread that they rob the poor
rate-payers of.  And if they are as wild as
foxes, they are quite as cunning. Indeed,
my opinion is that a regular inveterate
professional tramp is as cunning and acute
as an Old Bailey barrister, and knows as
much of the world. The she-tramps, too,
are the most disgusting specimens of
human nature that ever fell under my
notice. And when they get into a rage,
their language is awful. I must say"
(and here the double M was very
conspicuous in Mr. Gomm's tone of voice and
in the angry sparkle of his eye) "that
I wish it was lawful to give the impudent
hussies a few rounds of the cat-o'-nine-tails!
If it were I would pick out the very
strongest honest woman in the workhouse
to administer the dose, and pay her
handsomely for it."

"But these, both males and females of
this worst description, must form a very
small class?" said I.

"Not so small as you imagine," replied
Mr. Gomm, his double M starting out as
vividly as before. "England is overrun
with them, and I don't see any way to
England's getting rid of them in the
present generation. Perhaps the next, if, in
the mean time, we can manage to catch
every child over five years of age, and send
it to school to be taught, not only reading,
writing, arithmetic, and geography, but its
duty to itself and society, may grow up
better than the present, and the race of
mere savages, may diminish amongst us.
That's my hope," he went on to say more
softly, again relapsing into the double M,
when he added, "not forgetting the
cat-o'-nine-tails for the grown-up incorrigibles."

"But touching the honest poor—who
work until their strength fails them—what
have you to say about them?"

"Nothing but what is kindly and charitable.
They are the victims of our
overcrowdedness, and are not to blame for what
they cannot help. When a man has toiled
and striven during a long life, society would
be worse than a wild beast if it allowed him
to perish in his old age, when his right hand
had lost its cunning. It is a sad thing to
me, when I see a lusty, willing, young fellow
driving the plough, or industriously hedging
or ditching, or doing other farm work, to
think how many chances there are that he
will come upon the workhouse when his
hair grows grey, and how few chances
there are that he will be able to keep out
of it. And yet, with all my pity for the
labourer, whose day's wage pays for no
more than the day's want, and hardly that,
I cannot say that a little more education,
not only in the common school branches, but
in the real knowledge of his duty to himself
and his offspring, would not greatly improve
his condition. Thousands of people of this
class seem to have no more idea of their duty
to the children whom they bring into the
world, than if they were rats. Only the
week before last, a poor, hard-working
under-gardener, at a big house I know of,
fell off an apple tree, and broke his right
arm badly in two places. He had not a
penny saved. All he earned was fifteen
shillings a week. The parson of the parish
helped him on a little, and one or two other
gentlemen and ladies did the same. But
what good was it? In the meanwhile
another man slipped into his situation, and
in less than three weeks this poor devil lost
all heart and hope. His means were
exhausted, and we had to take him into the
workhouse; not only him, but his wife
and nine children. What right had he
to beget nine children if he could not tide
over three weeks without coming to the
workhouse with the whole brood of them?
Do you call that honest or fair either to
himself, his children, or the ratepayers
of his parish? I don't, and I won't,
though you may think me heartless for
saying so. If that man hadn't married,
and hadn't had nine children, before he was
able to support even himself, and allow a
little margin for sickness and accident, he
might have had his margin to himself, and