Why, indeed? At present the Slave Market is
undoubtedly a nuisance; but there is no reason why, under proper police
supervision, it should not become a local convenience. The ways of East
London differ in all respects from those of the West, and Servants'
Registries would not pay. Masters and servants are alike too poor to
advertise; and there seems to be no reason why the Slave Market, under a
changed name, and with improved regulations, may not as really supply a
want as the country "hirings" do. The Arab, at present, is not to be
trusted with too much liberty. Both male and female have odd Bedouin
ways of their own, requiring considerable and judicious manipulation to
mould them to the customs of civilized society. The respectable
residents, tired of the existing state of things, look not unreasonably,
as ratepayers, to the School Board to thin down the children, and the
police to keep the adults in order. Under such conditions, the Bethnal
Green Slave Market may yet become a useful institution.

CHAPTER IX.

TEA AND EXPERIENCE.

I was walking the other day in one of the pleasant western suburbs, and
rashly sought a short cut back; when, as is generally the case, I found
that the longer would have been much the nearer way home. Before I knew
it, I was involved in the labyrinths of that region, sacred to
washerwomen and kindred spirits, known as Kensal New Town; and my
further progress was barred by the intervention of the Paddington Canal,
which is spanned at rare intervals in this locality by pay-bridges, to
the great discomfort of the often impecunious natives. There was not
even one of these at hand, or my halfpenny would have been paid under
protest; so I had to wander like a lost sprite among the network of
semi-genteel streets that skirt that most ungenteel thoroughfare, the
Kensal New Town Road, and forthwith I began to find the neighbourhood
papered with placards, announcing a "Tea and Experience Meeting" at a
local hall, under the presidency of the Free Church pastor, for the
following Monday evening. Bakers' shops bristled with the handbills, and
they studded the multitudinous pork butchers' windows in juxtaposition
with cruel-looking black puddings and over-fat loin chops. I determined
I would go, if not to the tea, certainly to the "Experience," for I like
novel experiences of all kinds: and this would certainly be new, whether
edifying or not.

I got at length out of the labyrinth, and on th