ut."

The actual head-quarters of the men I found to be at the Pewter Platter,
White Lion Street, Bishopsgate. Thither I adjourned, and, after drinking
the conventional glass of bitter at the bar, asked for a baker. One came
forth from an inner chamber, looking sleepy, as bakers always look. In
the penetralia of the parlour which he left I saw a group of floury
comrades, the prominent features of the gathering being depression and
bagatelle. By my comatose friend I was referred to the Admiral Carter,
in Bartholomew Close, where the men's committee sat daily at four. The
society in front of the bar there was much more cheerful than that of
the Pewter Platter, and the bakers were discussing much beer, of which
they hospitably invited me to partake. Still I learned little of their
movements, save that they were to a man resolved to abide by the now
familiar platform of work from four to four, higher wages, and no Sunday
bakings. These were the principal features of the demands, the sack
money and perquisites being confessedly subsidiary. Nauseated as the
public was and is with strikes, there are certain classes of the
community with whom it is disposed to sympathize; and certainly one of
those classes is that of journeymen bakers. Bread for breakfast we must
have, and rolls we should like; but we should also like to have these
commodities with as little nightwork as possible on the part of those
who produce them. The "Appeal to the Public" put forth by the Strike
Committee on the evening of the day concerning which I write was,
perhaps, a trifle sensational; but if there was any truth in it, such a
state of things demanded careful investigation--especially if it was a
fact that the baker slept upon the board where the bread was made, and
mingled his sweat and tears with the ingredients of the staff of life.
Pardonably, I hope, I wished to eat bread without baker for my
breakfast; but how could I probe this dreadful problem? I had it--by a
visit to the bakehouse of my own baker, if possible, during the hours of
work.

So I set out afresh after supper, and was most obligingly received by
the proprietor of what one may well take as a typical West-end
shop--neither very large nor very small--what is graphically termed a
"snug" concern with a good connexion, doing, as the technical phrase
goes, from sixteen to twenty sacks a week. The resources of this
establishment were at once placed at my disposal for the night. Now, the
a