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CHAPTER II.

FIVE POUNDS FOR FLESH AND BLOOD.

"A most acute juvenal, voluble, and free of grace."

Love's Labour's Lost.

"So justice while she winks at crimes,
Stumbles on innocence sometimes."—Hudibras.

"There is now in England a mass, an ever-increasing mass, of unemployed labour, supplying victims for unprincipled and short-sighted capitalists, or filling our gaols and workhouses; try whether association will not gradually assimilate this mass, and render it the strength and not the poison, the blessing and not the curse of our country."—Letter of Charles Kingsley.

"It weren't none on your fault, master," the little man was saying. Dr. Courtenay was expressing regret for the mishap.

"I'm mighty glad to be here, I can tell you," the child ran on. "It's so clean and quiet, and them young ladies," pointing to a group of nurses, "is so kind. Don't let them take me away again."

"Why do you not want to go home?" inquired the doctor.

"Home?" the child exclaimed. "It's what they call hell at the Mission House. Mother she drinks, and grannie drinks, and they beat me if I doesn't bring enough home at night. I often sleeps out under the railway near the wharfs for fear of them. Then they whacks me more when I gets home for stopping away."